Attorney Gilman has better resume

Two veteran attorneys hope to be elected judge in Broward County Court, Group 22, and Allison Gilman is the better of the two options.

Gilman, 52, and Casey Mills, 61, are vying for the seat left vacant when incumbent County Judge Christopher Pole decided not to seek reelection.

Gilman has a more varied resume. She started her career as an assistant public defender and then set out on her own, building a law practice that once employed about 60 people. She marketed the firm as one that employed mostly female attorneys and focused on women’s issues.

Now, she runs a solo practice out of her house. She said she cut back on her legal work to pursue her dream of being a judge. She has applied several times for an appointment to the bench, submitting to the Judicial Nominating Commission’s vigorous vetting process. However, the commission didn’t recommend her to the governor. As we’ve previously said, party politics are not supposed to play a role in who sits on the bench. But when it comes to a governor appointing someone to fill a vacancy, they absolutely do.

Gilman now handles felonies and misdemeanors and runs Ticket Angels, a business she has operated for 15 years that takes care of thousands of traffic cases a year.

Gilman ran for county judge in 2018 and lost. During that campaign, she stressed her work on women’s issues. But this year, her answers in the Sun Sentinel questionnaire were fairly generic. She said she’s running for judge now because “I can make a difference for years to come.”

In our joint candidate endorsement interview, Gilman said her 2018 emphasis on women’s issues “might have worked against me.” Now her selling point is her “30 years of being in the courthouse.”

Gilman has tried more than 200 cases in the Broward County Courthouse, according to her campaign website. In fact, she’s well known to those who work there. Several people described her to us as “very nice.”

Gilman vows to be nice from the bench. She said she’s seen judges who “treat people as if they are just a number on a docket.” Her decades of traipsing through the courthouse have taught her “the importance of remembering as a judge you are a public servant and always treat others with respect.”

Mills has practiced law longer than Gilman, but most of his work has been “in the areas of wills, trusts, estates and guardianship,” he said in his questionnaire. He has tried some cases in probate court, but never in criminal court.

However, he said he was a magistrate in traffic court for about a year in the 1990s and got a good taste of how to run a busy courtroom. He said it was an excellent experience, but the pay was so bad he quit to focus on his legal practice.

Part of Mills’ pitch to voters is that his family has deep roots in Broward County. On both his questionnaire and in the endorsement interview, Mills mentioned that his family moved to Broward in 1940 and have helped it grow and prosper.

His father, Dick Mills, was a longtime Fort Lauderdale city commissioner, who was an advocate for the city’s parks. The city recognized his work by naming Mills Pond Park in his honor.

Mills graduated from Fort Lauderdale High School and earned both his bachelor’s and law degrees from Florida State University. His campaign website says that he has won the endorsement of the local chapter of Hispanic Vote. He said he has loaned his campaign $30,000 and raised several thousand more.

Gilman has a criminology degree from Florida State University and received her law degree from St. Thomas University School of Law in Miami Gardens. She said she has loaned her campaign $20,000 and raised another $3,500. She has the endorsement of the local Fraternal Order of Police, according to her campaign website.

County Court judges are paid about $152,000 a year and serve a six-year term. The election is Aug. 18.

Gilman