Robert Nichols Scola Jr. (born October 30, 1955) is a

United States district judge The United States district courts are the trial courts of the United States federal judiciary, U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each United States federal judicial district, federal judicial district, which each cover o ...

of the

United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida The United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida (in case citations, S.D. Fla. or S.D. Fl.) is the federal United States district court with territorial jurisdiction over the southern part of the state of Florida.. Appeals ...

Early life and education

Scola earned a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

degree in 1977 from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

and a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

in 1980 from

Boston College School of Law Boston College Law School (BC Law) is the law school of Boston College. It is situated on a wooded campus in Newton, Massachusetts, about 1.5 miles from the university's main campus in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. With approximately 800 studen ...

Professional career

From 1980 until 1986, Scola worked in the Miami-Dade Office of the State Attorney. From 1986 until 1995, he worked in private legal practice, both as a sole legal practitioner and also as a criminal defense attorney. In 1995, Scola became a judge on Florida's Eleventh Judicial Circuit presiding over criminal, civil and family law matters. On April 29, 2019, Scola, a cancer survivor, recused himself from a case against

healthcare insurance Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among ma ...

company United Healthcare, stating, that the company's denial of treatment was "immoral and barbaric" and that his opinions regarding would prevent him from "deciding this case fairly and impartially."

Federal judicial service

On May 4, 2011, President Obama nominated Scola to serve as a judge on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Scola would fill the seat vacated by Judge

Paul Huck Paul C. Huck (born July 22, 1940) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Education and career Huck was born in 1940 in Covington, Kentucky. He received his Bachelor of ...

, who took

senior status Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges. To qualify, a judge in the Federal judiciary of the United States, federal court system must be at least 65 years old, and the sum of the judge's age and years of servi ...

in August 2010. The United States Senate confirmed Scola in a

voice vote In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...

on October 19, 2011; he received his commission the following day. Scola Jr. announced he will take senior status on October 31, 2023.

Cases

On October 27, 2021, Scola transferred a lawsuit filed by former President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pe ...

against

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

from his court to the

Northern District of California The United States District Court for the Northern District of California (in case citations, N.D. Cal.) is the federal United States district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties of California: Alameda, Contra Costa, Del ...

, holding that a forum selection clause required the California court to decide the case.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Scola, Robert N. Jr. 1955 births Living people Boston College Law School alumni Brown University alumni Florida International University faculty Florida state court judges Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama 21st-century American judges American people of Italian descent Criminal defense lawyers American prosecutors State attorneys University of Miami faculty