Attorney Highlight – Sharhonda Robinson-Edwards

 

My name is Sharhonda Robinson-Edwards. I’m originally from California, but I am now located in the lovely sunny state of Florida; I live in Fort Lauderdale. However, I work in the Miami office, which is the Southern Florida office of Mintzer Sarowitz Zeris Ledva & Meyers LLP.

What Is Your Background?

I am a Cali girl through and through. I grew up in California, always wanting to be an attorney for as long as I’ve known. I was always interested in debate. From a young age, back to elementary school, I participated in oratorical Fest and debate. I was on the debate team throughout high school. I went to college in the District of Columbia at Howard University, where I got my bachelor’s degree in economics and a minor in Japanese.

From there, I left undergraduate and I went to work for a large corporate law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area. I took some time off, but I knew I always wanted to go to law school to be an attorney. But before I did that, I became a paralegal and I earned a paralegal certificate. It was during that course that my professor told me, “It’s time for you to go to law school. This is what you should be doing.” And so I did. I traveled to Florida to attend Nova Southeastern University Shepard broad College of Law.

What Areas of Practice Do You Focus On?

My practice is largely insurance defense, focused on premise liability issues. I represent a vast number of companies within the restaurant, retail and hospitality area. I also practice admiralty and maritime law. I have a background of municipal liability, as well as SIU and first party litigation.

What Is Your Favorite Case That You’ve Worked On?

One of my favorite cases that I worked on was a case involving an individual who had visited a large retail store and claimed he had injured himself when he ran into some shelving while in that store. I was defending the retail store. I think this is one of my favorite cases because of how I was able to catch the plaintiff in a lie, which heavily impacted his case during a deposition. And this was possible by doing the proper discovery. And by when I say the proper discovery, I mean, subpoenaing his medical record, reviewing those medical records and being familiar with it. With regards to his medical conditions before and after his alleged incident at my clients business, and what essentially happened was that in deposition, I asked the individual if he has ever had any injury or pain to this area that he was claiming was injured as a result of the incident at my client’s business. He repeatedly denied it, yet I had medical records from two days before this alleged incident of him at the emergency room of a local hospital complaining about injury and pain in that exact same area, which predates the incident at my client’s alleged store. Nevertheless, to say that case definitely got resolved favorably for my client. And I think that’s why it was one of my favorite cases, because through the due diligence of discovery, I was able to obtain a great result for my client.

What Is Your Greatest Accomplishment?

I would say a point where I felt that I really excelled in my career is something that has occurred within the last couple of years. That essentially would be growing into a much more seasoned attorney, expanding my practice areas, and being able to represent a much more vast clientele than I was years previous. Taking on a leadership role, not only with my team, to where I have the ability to mentor and train other attorneys, but also being able to contribute to my firm’s business development as well. I think being able to interact with potential clients and create those relationships that could potentially lead to future business for not only myself and my firm is one of my greatest accomplishments in my career.

What Do You Like About Being An Attorney?

I like the ability to argue on either side of an issue, and that’s one of the greatest things about being an attorney is that through the work and diligence, and the skills that we have, and the statutes and laws that exist, there’s an argument on each side. And the ability to be able to understand both of those arguments and essentially build up one side, bigger than the other, is one of my greatest pleasures.

What Do You Like About Living in Miami?

Interestingly, it’s a pro and a con for me, and that’s going to be the weather. It is always warm and on Christmas you can wear flip flops! So that’s something that I enjoy because I never get too cold. But at the same time I miss it because being a Cali girl, I came from an area that had all seasons, so I’ll sometimes miss wearing my boots and my snow coat. But for that I just travel, and I get that temporary relief. And then I come back home to the sunny state of Florida. I also like its proximity to a lot of great vacation places.

What Is A Fun Fact About You?

I think an interesting fact about me that most people don’t know until you get me talking is that I consider myself kind of a foodie; I love trying different foods. And I’m open to so many different types of food. Every time I travel I’m always looking at ratings and different restaurants in the area. I’ve been researching Food Network for places that have been featured on there just to try it, enjoy it and please my palate.

What Are Your Charitable Endeavors?

There are quite a few organizations that I work with in my community that are near and dear to my heart. The first one is going to be my sorority, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. I am a member of the Broward Alumnae Chapter and we are a nonprofit organization that is internationally based. We have over 300,000 members and we continue the work from our Collegiate throughout our alumni chapter in our community. We do mentoring, voters registration, and so much more in the community in so many different areas based upon the needs of our community which are continuous. 

Another organization that is near and dear to my heart is the William Dandy Middle School pre law program. This is an amazing group of young students who are eager and interested in the legal field. I have had the pleasure to work with them in the past and was able to take this group of students out to a conference for attorneys, where they were able to attend the CLE’s  provided to attorneys to give them insight on what attorneys deal with in their law of practice and to learn expanded information about our various practice areas. Another way that I was able to interact with these amazing students was by doing a feature presentation with them in their class on a law topic. This is just an amazing group of kids that I enjoy interacting with at any opportunity that I can.