{"id":401567,"date":"2026-09-16T14:54:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401567\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T14:54:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:54:14","slug":"how-jose-rohaidy-went-from-mdc-student-to-a-circuit-court-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/401567\/","title":{"rendered":"How Jose Rohaidy Went From MDC Student To A Circuit Court Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Jose Rohaidy roamed the hallways at Wolfson Campus in 2010, he had a steadfast devotion to public service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The budding leader was part of the Student Government Association, Phi Theta Kappa and he participated in the Global Citizenship Seminar in Salzburg, Austria.<\/p>\n

Sixteen years later, the now 36-year-old is continuing to lead. In November, Gov. Ron DeSantis appointed him as a county court judge in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit of Florida at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Rohaidy<\/a>, who is 10 months into that appointment, attended his investiture ceremony at the Osvaldo N. Soto Miami-Dade Justice Center, which sits less than a mile from his old stomping grounds\u2014the Wolfson Campus.<\/p>\n

Rohaidy was officially robed by his parents Jose and Leonela Rohaidy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he will objectively apply law to fact, and I think he\u2019s a wonderful addition to the Eleventh Judicial Circuit,\u201d said Andrew Darlington, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

As a county court judge, Rohaidy is tasked with being the court of first resort, dealing with the criminal division of cases related to driving offenses, theft under $1,000 and loitering.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rohaidy was previously an associate attorney for a private practice focused on healthcare litigation for a year and a half and an assistant state attorney for six years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see somebody go from a prosecutor, go through the ranks and then finally become a judge, it was incredible,\u201d said Brandon Gonzalez, a former colleague of Rohaidy\u2019s at the state attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

After graduating from the Honors College with an associate of arts degree in business administration and management, Rohaidy transferred to the University of Florida where he earned a bachelor of science degree in business administration and economics in 2012.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He continued carving his path at the St. Thomas University College of Law, earning his doctorate degree in 2017 before passing the Florida Bar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Born to Lebanese-Cuban exiles, Rohaidy was the first in his family to graduate college and pursue law.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So when a new judicial seat was created by the Florida legislature and it went active last year, Darlington and the late Gary Kravitz, Rohaidy\u2019s STU College of Law legal writing professor, encouraged Rohaidy to apply.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The application process took about two months to complete. Rohaidy was required to provide writing samples and recommendation letters from attorneys he had cases against.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom the beginning, he bought into our ideas of civic engagement really quickly,\u201d said retired MDC professor Christopher Migliaccio, who taught Rohaidy in three honors classes at Wolfson Campus and wrote a recommendation letter for his judgeship. \u201cHe didn\u2019t need to be convinced.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

After submitting his application, Rohaidy, a father of two, headed to DeSantis\u2019 office in Tallahassee for a formal interview.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the back of my mind I always knew I wanted to go to law school,\u201d Rohaidy said. \u201cI always figured that at some point down the line I would be a judge, but I didn\u2019t think it would be this early in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter, The Hammerhead. For news tips, contact us at mdc.thereporter@gmail.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Eleventh<\/a>Swearing-In: Judge Cristina Miranda conducts the administration of oath during Eleventh Judicial Circuit Court judge Jose Rohaidy\u2019s investiture ceremony on Sept. 11. To Rohaidy\u2019s left is his wife Angela. LUCAS DUARTE\/THE REPORTER<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Jose Rohaidy roamed the hallways at Wolfson Campus in 2010, he had a steadfast devotion to public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":401568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[159758,225,227,226,159759],"class_list":["post-401567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-eleventh-judicial-circuit-of-florida","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news","tag-the-honors-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=401567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/401567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/401568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=401567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=401567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=401567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}