How do judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.

Florida District Courts of Appeal / Joined 1975 / Served to 1996

Leonard Rivkind

Judge, Florida District Courts of Appeal

Leonard Rivkind was a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal, who joined the court in 1975. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born: 1926 · age 100
Tenure: 1975–1996 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1975	Florida District Courts of Appeal	–	–

Education

University of Miami

Judicial Record

In our data, Rivkind authored 18 published opinions for the court (1978–1995). Most cited: Goldman v. State Farm Fire Gen. Ins. Co. (97 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1995	Goldman v. State Farm Fire Gen. Ins. Co.	660 So. 2d 300	97
1981	Drexel Properties, Inc. v. BAY COLONY, ETC.	406 So. 2d 515	43
1986	Begley v. State	483 So. 2d 70	32
1987	Crippen v. Crippen	508 So. 2d 1339	25
1979	Magee v. Liberty Mut. Ins. Co.	366 So. 2d 827	19
1985	Eagle v. Benefield-Chappell, Inc.	476 So. 2d 716	18
1979	Baker v. Baker	366 So. 2d 873	13
1978	State v. Smith	360 So. 2d 21	10
1987	Francese v. Tamarac Hosp. Corp.	504 So. 2d 546	9
1986	Tappan v. Florida Medical Center, Inc.	488 So. 2d 630	9
1978	Baker v. Baker	360 So. 2d 19	8
1989	Cherry v. State	540 So. 2d 146	6
1980	Koschmeder v. Griffin	386 So. 2d 625	6
1987	Lewis v. State	509 So. 2d 1236	5
1989	Nagashima v. Busck	541 So. 2d 783	4

Showing the 15 most-cited of 18 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Florida District Courts of Appeal reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is merit selection with retention.
Which court was Leonard Rivkind on?: Leonard Rivkind was a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

See something wrong? Report an error. Fixes are logged in the corrections log.

21 years on the Florida District Courts of Appeal. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).