Unlike the other judicial races this summer for Hillsborough County Circuit Court, the contest between Tampa-based attorneys John Schifino and Kelly Ayers in the Group 9 race has attracted some attention outside of legal circles.

Schifino is a 54-year-old trial and appellate lawyer working on business litigation cases for the firm of Gunster Yoakley. He’s also a former head of the Hillsborough County Bar Association and has received most of the major endorsements in the race.

Ayers, 52, opened her first law firm in 1997 and now owns three firms. She works in civil litigation, family law and private dependency, but her campaign probably received the most attention after she announced on July 11 she had tested positive for COVID-19. 

“Every morning I woke up, the best way to describe it was that I felt like I was just getting out of surgery,” Ayers told Spectrum Bay News 9.

“I had a temperature. I was nauseous, but I didn’t have the flu-like symptoms.”

She’s since recovered and tested negative for the virus last week. 

A few days after that, she came under fire for her claim on her website and in her campaign literature that she had rewritten the Florida Baker Act Statute.

Ayers says this happened back in 1997, when she was just beginning her legal career at the Tampa offices of Fowler White.

That’s when she was contacted by a former USF professor whom she worked for while attending Stetson University College of Law.

The professor had moved to New York and received a grant to rewrite the Florida Baker Act Statute (which was passed by the Legislature in 1971 and went into effect the next year), but he needed a Florida-based attorney to lead the entire re-write.

Ayers says she was that attorney, and she went around the state to get input on how to improve the statute from mental health professionals, lawyers, and anyone else who attended her public forums.

Ayers says she has been subject to withering criticism from her opponent’s supporters for stating this. While she admits that her initial statement that she had written the Baker Act Statute – which was written when she was just “three or four years old” – her website now says she “rewrote” it. 

But, she says she’s still receiving attacks that haven’t relented.

”My position is: I got a call from a professor at USF. He said ‘Kelly, we’ve got the grant to rewrite the Baker Act Statute. Will you come over and lead the team?’ And that’s exactly what I did,” Ayers explained.

Schifino declined to comment when asked about this situation on Tuesday.

“We’re just trying to keep the focus on our campaign,” he told Spectrum Bay News 9, citing recent endorsements from the Tampa Bay Times and the Florida Sentinel-Bulletin.

Schifino says that, throughout his career, he’s tried to engage in as much public service as possible and sees serving as a circuit judge in Hillsborough County as a fulfillment of that pledge.

“Judges are public servants, first and foremost, when operating properly,” he says. They defend the rule of law. They protect the rights of individuals. They keep in check the powers of government. It’s an incredibly noble job, and it would be humbling and a privilege to be a part of it.”

One difference between the two attorneys is how much time they spend in the courtroom.

Schifino says that, in his current line of work, that doesn’t happen that often.

Ayers says she’s in the courtroom almost every day (though mostly virtual in the age of the coronavirus). 

Ayers purchased a law firm a few years ago that services the Hispanic community exclusively – and she says that doing so has exposed her to the “inequality in our justice system.”

She says she recently represented a Hernando County man who was racially profiled. 

“He was pulled over [and] found out that he didn’t have a valid driver’s license and he was prosecuted for that,” she says. “I can tell you that if I was driving in that same truck, driving down that same corridor, I doubt that I would have been pulled over.”

Schifino says he hopes the voters do their research and take the time to compare him and his opponent before casting their vote. 

“Over my career, you’ll see the work I’ve done, the community efforts I’ve made, the professional efforts I’ve made, and I just think that measures up really well,” he says. 

Judges in circuit court handle felony criminal cases, estates and juvenile issues, and civil disputes involving more than $30,000.

They’re elected for a six-year term.