Susan H. Rothstein-Youakim

A Sarasota native, Judge Susan H. Rothstein-Youakim graduated from Pine View School in 1987. She graduated in 1990 from Duke University, cum laude, and in 1993 from the University of Florida College of Law, where she was an Executive Articles Editor on the Florida Journal of International Law.

After law school, Judge Rothstein-Youakim moved to Tampa and began her career as a law clerk to the Honorable Charles R. Wilson, United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, who was then a federal magistrate judge. In January 1995, Judge Rothstein-Youakim joined the Appellate Division of the United States Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida. There, she represented the United States and its client agencies in hundreds of criminal, civil, and post-conviction appeals in the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. She also served as an instructor at the Department of Justice's National Advocacy Center in Columbia, South Carolina.

In May 2016, Governor Rick Scott appointed Judge Rothstein-Youakim to the Second District Court of Appeal, and she began her service on the court on July 5, 2016. She is active in the American Inns of Court, receiving the Altenbernd Award for Excellence from the Bruce R. Jacob-Chris W. Altenbernd Criminal Appellate Inn in 2015 and currently participating in the Wm. Reece Smith, Jr., Litigation Inn. She also serves as the Second District's representative on the Education Program Committee for the Conference of District Court of Appeal Judges and as the court's liaison to the Twelfth Judicial Circuit. She is a former member of the Florida Bar's Appellate Court Rules Committee, having served as chair of its criminal practice subcommittee and as vice chair of the full Committee.