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Michael D. Porter
Circuit Judge · Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court
High confidence· verified August 3, 2026
Circuit Judge · Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court
What applies in this courtroom
910 verified requirements and 6 rule deadlines govern practice before Judge Michael D. Porter across the judge, division, county, circuit, and statewide layers.
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Circuit Judge — St Lucie County
Also: Appellate; Civil
Courtroom 4B
On this assignment since January 12, 2026
Circuit Judge — St Lucie County · Appellate; Civil
Judge Porter was appointed to the Circuit Court bench by Governor Ron DeSantis in July 2025, and is currently assigned to the civil jury trial division in Saint Lucie County. Judge Porter also handles substance abuse, mental health, and risk protection order cases.
Judge Porter graduated from the University of Louisville in 1999, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration (Finance), and obtained his law degree from Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, Ohio in 2002.
Judge Porter began his legal career as a law clerk for Judge Rick Johnson of the Kentucky Court of Appeals (2002 – 2004), where he drafted appellate opinions that covered issues arising under criminal law, civil law, family law, administrative law, and probate law. After Judge Porter completed his clerkship with Judge Johnson, he served as a law clerk for the Honorable Karla R. Spaulding, a United States Magistrate Judge in Orlando, Florida (2004 – 2006), where he drafted orders addressing procedural and substantive issues in civil and criminal cases, including motions for summary judgment, motions to dismiss, and discovery motions.
From 2006 – 2011, Judge Porter practiced law at GrayRobinson, P.A. in Orlando, where he handled civil cases throughout the State of Florida. Judge Porter’s practice at GrayRobinson covered many aspects of civil litigation, including complex business litigation, premises liability, landlord/tenant, and trademark infringement.
In 2011, Judge Porter left private practice to pursue his dream of becoming a federal prosecutor. Judge Porter served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern and Western Districts of Tennessee from 2011 – 2018, and Southern District of Florida (Fort Pierce Branch) from 2018 – 2025, where he represented the United States and the people of the Treasure Coast in all facets of the criminal justice system. During his tenure as an Assistant United States Attorney, Judge Porter worked directly with the DEA, FBI, ATF, IRS, HSI, ICE, and local authorities in prosecuting drug trafficking offenses, drug-related homicides, drug diversion cases, financial crimes, tax crimes, fraud offenses, domestic terrorism, violent crimes, immigration offenses, and firearm offenses. Judge Porter tried dozens of criminal cases as an Assistant United States Attorney.
Published by the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit Court on this judge's own profile page and reproduced verbatim — BenchPath does not write or paraphrase judicial biographies. Read it on the court's site →
Appeals from this courtroom go to the Fourth District Court of Appeal (West Palm Beach).
● LiveThat court's published bench (11): Alan O. Forst, Burton C. Conner, Caroline Shepherd, Cory J. Ciklin, Johnathan D. Lott, Jonathan D. Gerber, Mark W. Klingensmith, Melanie G. May, Robert M. Gross, Shannon K. Shaw, Spencer D. Levine
Jurisdiction per § 35.043, Fla. Stat. (six-district alignment eff. Jan. 1, 2023).
30-day recheck scheduled with the source monitor. | Biography captured 2026-08-03 verbatim from the judge's own page on circuit19.org; duty-language paragraphs excluded so procedures never read as biography.
6 verified rules specific to this judge's division, grouped by requirement category. 910 total requirements apply in this courtroom across all layers — the Full Premium Report assembles the complete stack.
No judge-level deadline on record runs shorter than a statewide deadline with the same trigger. The sentinel compares quoted timing across every published rule scoped to this judge on each visit — a clean result today is re-earned tomorrow.
No judge-scoped deadlines on this tab. Deadlines are extracted only when the source rule text states them — we never infer or calculate dates the rule does not explicitly contain. 6 rule deadlines apply in this courtroom across all layers — assembled with citations in the Full Premium Report.
Timing shown here is quoted from the rule text. Compute your actual date against the court's calendar and the rule itself — not legal advice.
No verified ruling summary yet. BenchPath generates ruling summaries from opinion and docket corpora (CourtListener where covered) and publishes them only after human review — fabricated judicial analytics are exactly what this platform refuses to ship.
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Answer three quick questions. The platform pulls Michael D. Porter's full public case-law record from the source, newest first — your matter never narrows the pull; it directs the relevance ranking and the dual-AI analysis. Every hit comes back Bluebook-cited with the opinion's own words quoted verbatim. The scan takes the time precision takes.
Case-law search
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last checked September 4, 2026
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Monitor: content changed at 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org). Review before republishing dependent rules.
via 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org)
Monitor: content changed at 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org). Review before republishing dependent rules.
via 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org)
Monitor: content changed at 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org). Review before republishing dependent rules.
via 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org)
Monitor: content changed at 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org). Review before republishing dependent rules.
via 19th Circuit — Administrative Orders (circuit19.org)