Times Staff Writer
Well, this is awkward.
A company that is suing the Florida Bar has hired a former Bar president to represent it. Ramon Abadin has joined the legal team of TIKD, a company that expedites the process of fighting traffic tickets in Pinellas,Hllsborough, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. TIKD alleges that the Bar and a Miami law firm, The Ticket Clinic, have conspired to put it out of business.
The Bar is seeking to disqualify Abadin from representing TIKD, arguing that during his 2015-16 term as president he was privy to attorney-client communications involving the antitrust issues alleged in the lawsuit. This is not Abadin's first brush with controversy — two years ago he sparked a furor by seeming to back a proposal that would have let out-of-state lawyers practice in Florida without taking the Florida Bar exam.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Traffic ticket-fighting firm says Florida Bar trying to put it out of business
Chris Riley, a U.S. Navy commander-turned entrepreneur, said he got the idea for TIKD after he was caught going a few miles over the speed limit in Miami and was hit with hundreds of dollars in fines and costs.
"The whole point (of TIKD) is to give consumers a simple way to do this," he said. "It's meant to be for plain vanilla, everyday things and not what I call moral hazards — DUI, very excessive speeding."