Richard J. Ovelmen
Partner

Florida

Email: rjo@jordenusa.com
Phone: 305.347.6805
Fax: 305.372.9928

Richard J. Ovelmen is a Partner in the Firm's Miami office. He has practiced constitutional, land-use, local government, media, and intellectual property law, including particularly First Amendment, defamation, trademark and copyright litigation, litigation regarding access to government held information, privacy, and trade secret claims, for more than twenty years. His practice also includes appellate work in all courts, complex commercial litigation, Bert J. Harris Act Claims, litigation concerning Developments of Regional Impact, local referenda and initiatives, and international litigation. Mr. Ovelman is chair of the firm's Appellate practice team.

Speeches and Publications

• Speaker: Fourth Annual Conference on Litigating Regulatory Takings Claims
• Speaker: Georgetown University Law Center at a conference, Fall of 2002, which explored takings and related constitutional challenges to land use, environmental and other regulatory programs; presentation focused on Florida's recently enacted Bert J. Harris Private Property Protection Act
• Principal Author: Annual survey article on the right of access to government information published by PLI in its Communications Law Handbook.
• Co-Authored: the PLI article on Newsrack Litigation (three years)
• Speaker and Panelist: PLI (sixteen years)
• Author: Forthcoming chapter on "Judicial Review of Agency Decisions with Respect to FOI Requests" for the FOIA Monograph produced by the ABA Central and East European Law Initiative
• Speaker: Litigation section of the ABA, at the annual conventions in London and Atlanta, lecturing on American and English libel suits and psycho-linguistic studies of jury instructions in libel suits
• Speaker: Panels for the ABA Forum Committee on Communications Law, addressing the issues of "chill" on freedom of expression caused by libel suits and press responses to retraction demands and other complaints
• Speaker, Panelist and Moderator: Florida Bar's annual Media Law Conference for the past twelve years. He has spoken about press/bar cross-perceptions, access to legal proceedings, press coverage of celebrated cases, subpoenas on reporters, public records and libel; written articles on access, subpoenas, and privacy for the Bar's annual publication, The Reporter's Handbook, and has been a featured speaker on software franchise litigation to the patent bar of the Southern District of Florida
• Panelist: Seminar on the First Amendment decisions of the United States Supreme Court handed down in the current Term, presented each year at the Florida Bar's annual convention
• Lecturer: On access rights and privacy at the Florida Press Association's annual convention
• Principal Author: The annotated summary of Florida libel law published each year in L.D.R.C.'s 50 state libel law survey. He is an L.D.R.C. lecturer on libel topics