Derrick Roberts

Personal:

After Ramona I went to Florida State University. I thought I would be living with my cousins & coming back to Riverside but my parents decided to move the family to Tallahassee, FL. I went on to Law School at the University of Miami; afterwards I married my FSU freshman sweetheart Kenya. Daren Castain, class of 88, was my best man! We've been blessed with two beautiful girls Kaiya & Kiahna.

Professionally:
I currently serve as General Counsel for a non-profit agency that is contracted by the State of Florida to provide an array of child welfare services in Broward County. The general nature of my current practice is corporate. In this role, my designated areas of practice include corporate law, government contracts, administrative law, education, family, guardianship and zoning.

As part of my fiduciary duty to the Board of Directors, I also provide consultation and civil litigation updates. In my advisory capacity I not only field everyday dependency inquiries from various levels of internal staff, but also serve as liaison to a broader outside network. This requires me to communicate on a daily basis with the Judiciary, Board of Directors, Community Stake-holders, Contractual Partners and citizens of Broward county. Typical services I provide my client include routine legal review of organizational policies and procedures; contract compliance monitoring of agencies with which we have entered into Memorandum of Understanding. Such agencies include the Office of the Attorney General, which provides child welfare legal services and the Broward Sheriff’s office, which provides child protection services. To assist with legal service provision, I employ a Legal Service Department comprised of three attorneys and two support staff members. I manage, coach and develop this team to provide legal support to our organization. A large component of the department’s responsibilities is the oversight of the dependency court process. I also delegate the coordination of responses to public inquires to adhere to the laws of confidentiality. One limited area litigation where I provide direct representation is my appearances in defense of any contempt actions before the dependency judiciary.

My role at Childnet differs from my previous prosecutorial positions with the State of Florida. I have less direct litiagtion responsibilities and my courtroom appearances are limited to addressing systemic or agency specific issues, not individual cases.

I will never forget my 56-yard TD against Norco which has now become a 100 yd TD in my old man back in the day stories! Or the four years of latin class with Mrs. O that prepared me for all the legalese I talk now. But honestly, I will not ever forget the people and relationships that made life at Ramona worth living.