{photo-left} JACKSONVILLE (June 5, 2012) — On May 10, 2012, James W. Middleton of Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP was inducted into the Litigation Counsel of America (LCA) at the LCA’s 2012 Spring Conference & Induction of Fellows in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Mr. Middleton’s practice includes complex commercial litigation, professional liability, products liability, intellectual property, class actions, bank failure FDIC litigation, business torts and land use litigation. He has significant trial experience, including jury and nonjury trials in state and federal courts, appeals and arbitrations, including AAA. Mr. Middleton’s business litigation experience includes officer/director and shareholder derivative suits, antitrust, patent, trademark and Lanham Act litigation, fraud, products liability, contract, defamation and punitive damage claims.

Mr. Middleton is a Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent Rated attorney, and in 2012 was named a Top Rated Lawyer in Business and Commercial Litigation as published in American Lawyer magazine. He is a pro bono Honor Roll lawyer of St. Johns County and serves on The Florida Bar Civil Procedure Rules Committee.

The LCA is a trial lawyer honorary society composed of less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers. Fellowship in the LCA is highly selective and by invitation only. Fellows are selected based upon excellence and accomplishment in litigation, both at the trial and appellate levels, and superior ethical reputation. Established as a trial and appellate lawyer honorary society reflecting the American bar in the twenty-first century, the LCA represents the best in law among its membership. For more information on the LCA, visit www.litcounsel.org.