David J. Volk, Esq.

Bar Admissions and Education

Florida Bar, West Virginia Bar, all Florida Federal District Courts, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. Former partner in what was Brevard County’s largest firm Reinman, Harrell, Graham, Mitchell & Wattwood, P.A. and established Volk Law Offices, P.A. in December of 1994. West Virginia University Bachelor of Science degree in business administration (accounting major) 1983 and juris doctor degree from that school’s College of Law 1987. Member: Moot Court Board and Lugar Trial Association. Legal research and writing teaching assistant while in law school.

Expertise & Public Speaking

Thirty-eight years' experience. Board Certified in Business Litigation by the Florida Bar Board of Legal Specialization and Education for fifteen years from 1996-2011. Less than one percent of lawyers in Florida obtain this Certification. Certification requires significant court experience, peer review, extensive continuing legal education, and written testing. First attorney in Brevard County to test to obtain this certification. Qualified Arbitrator. Qualified in bankruptcy and collections under the Florida Bar Designation Plan based upon substantial experience and education in those areas of concentrated practice. National Institute for Trial Advocacy trial skills program (ten day program at North Carolina University). Advanced Trial Skills (five day program at University of Florida). Member of the Florida Bar Speakers Bureau, has spoken publicly on various bankruptcy topics including discharging taxes in bankruptcy, lender liability, environmental liability, collections, trade secrets and non-compete agreements, counseling clients, Real Property Litigation, Using Credit and Financial Planning, Attorney Ethics, Successful Business Practices, and How to Succeed At Work. Listed in Who’s Who In American Law and Who’s Who In America, adjunct professor: Brevard Community College (Introduction to the Legal System, Bankruptcy, and Bankruptcy/Debtor-Creditor Law. Instructor: Brevard Community College Small Business Venture Clinic providing start-up business advice. Regularly appeared on The Cerny Success Show on WMEL-AM and Bright House TV discussing legal topics. Author of Winning Listening & Negotiating Skills, Business LIFE (May 2005), Evaluating a Nonconforming Construction Matter, The Ex Parte(February 2006), Are You Ready for the Storms? How to Mitigate Your Legal Risks, Space Coast Business (August 2011), and Is Now the Time to Get Rich in Real Estate? How to Mitigate Your Legal Risks, Space Coast Business (October 2011).

Volk partnered with The Melbourne Regional Chamber of East Central Florida in presenting the 2012 VLO BizBetter© Series. This business luncheon series designed by Mr. Volk focuses on commonplace issues faced in the workplace. Whether it’s planning an effective meeting, managing e-mail, or dealing with a difficult co-worker, we all encounter similar challenges on a daily basis. This 6-part series provided a strategic, no-nonsense approach to efficiently resolving day-to-day issues and enhancing relations in today’s fast-paced business climate.

Experience

Volk has focused on trial practice. His experience includes the following areas:

Commercial Litigation: numerous and varied disputes such as partner and shareholder, employer-employee actions including trade-secrets, non-compete, and employment agreements, breach of contract, UCC, lender liability, RICO, securities, sale of business, and franchise actions.

Fraud: diverse matters including lending, automobile, prop and jet aircraft, race car, and real estate schemes.

Collections: prosecuted and defended attachments, replevins, garnishments, fraudulent transfer suits, and levies.

Real Property Rights: prosecuted and defended mortgage foreclosures and other matters involving real estate such as commercial landlord/tenant, ownership, nuisance, construction defect and lien, and eminent domain cases.

Bankruptcy: experience in virtually all aspects of that field. He has represented creditors, debtors, and professionals in bankruptcy proceedings, including personal, manufacturing, real estate, and restaurant reorganizations, liquidations, stay proceedings, claim disputes, fraud/preference litigation, and discharge litigation.

Governmental Misconduct: code enforcement misconduct and owner rights, administrative rights, and civil violations.

Forfeiture Litigation: represented the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in contraband forfeiture suits.

Conducted approximately eighty five trials and eight hundred fifty hearings as sole or lead counsel. Litigated cases around the State of Florida and in Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, Alabama, and West Virginia.

A sample of experience and results of interest includes:

1. the successful prosecution of a receivership involving an aircraft equipment manufacturer and approximately thirty other defendants with claims to property on the premises;

2. preventing bankruptcy discharges of approximately $1,000,000.00 and $830,000.00 in business debt owed clients due to misconduct by debtors in filing their cases;

3. obtaining an $830,000.00 fraud trial judgment regarding false statements used to lease a jet;

4. $800,000.00 trial judgment for failure to close on sale of a condo;

5. a $5,400,000.00 housing development foreclosure including negotiating terms by which the developer would allow foreclosure, not file for bankruptcy protection, and assist the lenders in completing the project;

6. reported cases, including regarding bankruptcy discharge ability, regarding the scope of the Florida homestead exemption for rural property, and Complaint drafting to obtain jurisdiction over out-of-state defendants;

7. lender liability cases representing borrowers so that strict compliance with loan documents is excused and alleged deficiencies are abandoned or severely reduced including saving a client from an alleged $5,000,000.00 deficiency judgment after a jet repossession due to irregularities in the repo process and millions in alleged deficiency money after foreclosure of a mixed use marina project,

8. successfully attacked a derivatives interest rate swap agreement in a $2,000,000.00 transaction bundle of loans due to unsuitability and failing to follow internal bank guidelines; and

9. commercial landlord-tenant cases where significant lease indebtedness was reduced to de minimis amounts.

This dispute experience is also useful in drafting and negotiating agreements for clients if you are used to seeing how things can go wrong.

Organizations

Melbourne Police Foundation (President 2 years, Vice-President 1 year). Board member of the Space Coast Economic Development Commission. Board of Directors of Melbourne Central Catholic High School seven years (President 3 years; Vice-President 1 year), Past Chairman and member of The Eighteenth Judicial Circuit Unlicensed Practice of Law Committee, Brevard County Bar (Past Chair, Local Rules of Civil Procedure Subcommittee, past member, Judicial Liaison Committee), Florida Bar (Civil Procedure Rules Committee, 1993-1996), the Federalist Society, the Melbourne-Palm Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, the Chamber Industrial Council, National Lawyers Association, 1994-1995 Leadership Brevard Chamber of Commerce program, College Leadership Brevard Mentor Program, Melbourne High School Academy Internship host, was an invitee to the 1998 Supreme Court Symposium on Professionalism, and is a past member of the Central Florida Bankruptcy Association, the Credit Professionals of Brevard (President, Vice-President), and International Credit Association.

Personal Background

Volk has a background of working in family-owned businesses, and this has been helpful in understanding how businesses are run. At the age of twelve, he went to work in his parents’ beverage warehouse with tasks such as sweeping floors, loading, unloading, and cleaning trucks, working in the icehouse, forklift operation, and checking in drivers receipts and money. He continued to stay active in the family business affairs up through graduating law school.

Other activities included helping with leasing, cleaning, and bookkeeping for commercial and residential rental properties; surface coal mining including operating and servicing trucks and machinery; the sale, delivery, installation, and servicing of manufactured homes; and construction of a mobile home park and commercial building.