JNCs invite applications for 17 new statewide.

Call it 15 down and 17 to go. But whatever the label, judicial nominating commissions around Florida are gearing up to fill the second batch of new judgeships approved by the legislature earlier this year.

The legislature authorized a total, of 32 new judgeships in the spring, specifying that 15 were to be advertised no sooner than August 1, and the remainder no sooner than October 1. In this round, JNCs will be interviewing applicants for one district court of appeal judge, 12 circuit judgeships and four, county judgeships.

The vacancies are for one seat on the Fifth DCA, two circuit vacancies each in the Fifth, Sixth and 19th circuits, one circuit vacancy each in the First, Eighth, 10th, 11th, 15th and 17th circuits, and one county judgeship each in Leon, Duval, Putnam and Hillsborough counties.

Applications are available from local JNC chairs and on the Bar's Internet site, FLABAR Online (www.FLABAR.org). To get an application online, go to the site and then click on the Organization item from the menu on the left side of the page. When the new page comes up, click on Standing Committees on the left hand menu, and then select the Judicial Nominating Procedures Committee from the following page.

At the top of the JNC Procedures Committee page is a hypertext link to the application page. The applications, are in the PDF, PKZIP and EXE formats, and there are directions for accessing the documents in each of the three formats, along with links for any additional software necessary. The EXE documents are compressed or "zip" documents which include the program to extract the documents in WordPerfect format. Instructions for, doing this are on the website.

The page also has a link to download the Adobe Acrobat program necessary to read PDF documents.

While the applications, can be found and downloaded online, they cannot be submitted...