RECERTIFICATION

The applicant must meet the following requirements for recertification during the 5-year period immediately preceding the application date.

(a) Substantial Involvement. The applicant must demonstrate continuous and substantial involvement in the practice of law, of which 30 percent has been spent in active participation in workers’ compensation law throughout the period since the last date of certification under the minimum standards for initial certification.

(b) Trial Requirement. The applicant must have completed 15 contested workers’ compensation trials since the filing of the last application for certification or recertification. All cases must have involved substantial legal or factual issues. The workers’ compensation certification committee may substitute 5 substantially equivalent cases, and 8 cases involving appeals or protracted litigation of contested workers’ compensation cases involving substantial legal or factual issues as trials for the trial requirement for good cause shown. An attorney fee hearing on the sole issue of the quantum fees is not considered a trial. A case involving a merits hearing with a later attorney’s fee hearing on the question of entitlement to an attorney’s fee on the same merit issues counts as only 1 case.

(c) Peer Review. The applicant must submit the names and addresses of 5 lawyers to complete peer review forms.

(d) Education. The applicant must complete 75 hours of approved continuing legal education in workers’ compensation law since the filing of the last application for certification.

(e) Waiver. On special application, for good cause shown, the workers’ compensation certification committee may waive compliance with the 15 contested workers’ compensation cases requirement for an applicant who has been continuously certified as a workers’ compensation lawyer for a period of 14 years or more.

(f) Judges of Compensation Claims. The applicant is deemed to have met the requirements for recertification if the applicant applies for recertification while serving as a judge of compensation claims. Added June 18, 1987, effective July 1, 1987 (508 So.2d 1236). Amended Sept. 21, 1989, effective Oct. 1, 1989 (548 So.2d 1120); July 23, 1992, effective Jan. 1, 1993 (605 So.2d 252); Oct. 31-Nov. 2, 1996, by the Board of Governors of The Florida Bar; amended and effective December 4, 2020 deleting former rule 6-11.4 Judges of Compensation Claims and renumbering 6-11.5 Recertification to 6-11.4.