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 2005 / Active

Richard J. Suarez

Judge, Florida District Courts of Appeal

Richard J. Suarez is a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal, serving since 2005. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Tenure: Since 2005 · 21 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
2005	Florida District Courts of Appeal	–	–

Education

University of Miami
University of Miami

Judicial Record

In our data, Suarez authored 528 published opinions for the court (2005–2019), plus 7 dissents and 3 concurrences. Most cited: Zarate v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. (28 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. 540 of these were attributed to Suarez by a unique court-, date-, and surname-match against our roster (marked ), because CourtListener recorded no author for them. Each links to the official text to verify. How we match.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
2012	Zarate v. Deutsche Bank National Trust Co.†	81 So. 3d 556	28
2012	Miami-Dade County v. Asad· Dissent†	78 So. 3d 660	27
2017	Pearce III v. Sandler†	219 So. 3d 961	24
2015	Connolly, Jr. v. State· Dissent†	172 So. 3d 893	23
2016	Grimes v. Family Dollar Stores of Florida, Inc.†	194 So. 3d 424	22
2013	Regions Bank v. Maroone Chevrolet, L.L.C.†	118 So. 3d 251	20
2014	Stockinger v. Zeilberger· Concurrence†	152 So. 3d 71	18
2013	Hope v. Citizens Property Insurance Corp.†	114 So. 3d 457	17
2013	General Electric Co. v. Chuly International, LLC†	118 So. 3d 325	16
2012	Tylinski v. Klein Automotive, Inc.†	90 So. 3d 870	14
2012	State v. BROSKY†	79 So. 3d 134	14
2010	NS v. Department of Children and Families†	36 So. 3d 776	14
2013	Sunshine State Insurance v. Davide†	117 So. 3d 1142	13
2009	United Automobile Insurance Co. v. Metro Injury & Rehab Center†	16 So. 3d 897	13
2011	CG v. Department of Children and Families†	67 So. 3d 1141	12

Showing the 15 most-cited of 540 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 is Richard J. Suarez on?: Richard J. Suarez is a Judge of the Florida District Courts of Appeal.

Sources

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

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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).