Women Trailblazers in Law

Iris Escarrá is a shareholder in the Miami office of Greenberg Traurig and co-chair of the firm’s national Land Use Practice. With over 20 years of legal experience, Iris represents many of South Florida’s largest real estate developers in zoning and land use matters. With her counsel, dozens of high-profile commercial, mixed-use, and residential projects have been completed throughout Miami over the past two decades.

A Florida Bar Board Certified Specialist in city, county, and local government law, Iris guides clients through the municipal zoning and land use process to help them obtain full entitlements for development. She also assists in procuring government contracts and conducts due diligence to assess a property’s development potential.

Before joining Greenberg Traurig in 2005, Iris served as an assistant city attorney for the City of Miami. Today, clients frequently praise Iris for her ability to leverage her deep knowledge of local zoning and land use regulations to help bring their development projects to fruition. 

Emmy® Award -winning journalist Jackie Nespral became the first Hispanic ever to anchor a network news program when she was tapped for NBC's Weekend Today show in 1992.

After commuting between Miami and New York for three years, she chose to continue her career in South Florida with NBC 6. She currently anchors “NBC 6 News” at 5pm and 6pm alongside NBC 6 anchor Jawan Strader. Jackie is also the host of Impact, a locally produced half-hour show dedicated to politics and current events, which airs Sundays at 9:30am.

While with NBC news, Nespral became known for her interviews with prominent figures, ranging from national and international leaders to celebrities. She has extensive experience covering stories such as the first US presidential visit to Havana, Papal visits to Cuba, presidential inaugurations, presidential debates, hurricanes, and the World Series and NBA championships among others. Her work has been recognized with six Emmy® Awards and a Silver Circle Award for her work of more than 30 years in the industry.

Prior to Joining NBC news, Nespral was the anchor of the one-hour live national newscast of “Noticias y Más” at the Univision network in 1991. She also worked as a reporter and weekend anchor for “Televisión Marti” and Dynamic Cablevision, a CNN affiliate in Miami.

A South Florida native, Nespral has remained a familiar face throughout the community. She is a former member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Miami where she also served as the first Hispanic woman president of the University of Miami Alumni Association. She is also on the board and actively involved in Amigos for Kids.

JULIE BRAMAN KANE is a partner at Colson Hicks Eidson where she has practiced law since 1993. Ms. Kane's litigation practice emphasizes representation of plaintiffs in products liability, personal injury, class action and business tort litigation. She is admitted to practice in Florida state and federal courts and the United States Supreme Court. She serves or has served as Court-appointed lead or liaison counsel as well as on leadership committees in various mass and class litigations.

In addition to her practice, Julie is actively involved in various local and national organizations. She is a past President of the American Association for Justice. She founded and co-chaired AAJ’s Voters Protection Action Committee (VPAC) which provides thousands of lawyers nationwide for legal work related to election protection. She has served as a Commissioner on the Florida Elections Commission and as President of the University of Miami Law Alumni Association. She is the immediate past President of the Attorneys Information Exchange Group, and she served six years on the Board of Trustees for the National College of Advocates, which she co-chaired for two years. She serves on the board of the Anti-Defamation League Florida, where she received the 2025 Jurisprudence Award. She remains active in the Miami-Dade Florida Association for Women Lawyers, of which she is a past President. She serves various organizations in different capacities addressing diversity and inclusion issues, including prior service on the Southern District of Florida Fairness & Diversity Committee.

Julie enjoys an AV rating from Martindale Hubbell and is Banded by Chambers USA. She is an invited member of The Summit Council and of the Iron Arrow Honor Society, is a LawDragon 500 Leading Consumer Lawyers in the United States, and is consistently recognized as a SuperLawyer, as a member of Florida Trend’s Legal Elite, and by Best Lawyers in America. She received the 2024 Ruth Bader Ginsburg Award, the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award and the 2017 Masterson Award for professionalism from the Florida Justice Association, the 2017 ABA TIPS Pursuit of Justice Award, and she was recognized as one of the Top 20 2015 South Florida Women in Law by the Daily Business Review. She was the 2017 recipient of the University of Miami Law School’s Law Alumni Achievement Award and the 2009 Alumni Leadership Award as well as the South Florida Business Journal’s Women Extraordinaire Award. She was a 2009 recipient of the Daily Business Review’s Most Effective Lawyers Award in the field of receiverships, and she is a 2009 nominee for the DBR’s Most Effective Lawyers in the field of medical negligence.

Julie and her husband Jeffrey are the proud parents of three children and a rescue dog and reside in Miami, Florida.

State Attorney Fernandez Rundle believes in a community and victim-centered approach. She has created a number of units and programs that assist victims of crime and ensure they are given the information, resources, and services they deserve and need, beyond, those mandated by Florida law.

State Attorney Fernandez Rundle prioritizes violent crimes prosecutions and has implemented a number of innovative strategies to better protect the community. In 1997, she partnered with multiple police agencies to create the Gang Strike Force (GSF). Gang prosecutors, detectives, and agents, investigate and prosecute the most dangerous gang members and street gangs. In 2016, she partnered with the Northside neighborhood, Miami-Dade, Miami Gardens, and City of Miami’s Police Departments to create the Gun Violence Initiative (GVU) that provides special protections to some of our community’s most vulnerable residents. The program is so successful, that she expanded it to Miami Gardens in 2019. GVU prosecutors, and homicide investigators facilitate successful investigations and prosecutions by building relationships with residents, gathering intelligence, responding to the scenes of all contact shootings, helping to locate and secure the attendance of victims and other essential witnesses, and assisting line prosecutors with other shooting cases in court. She also pioneered the fight against the sex trafficking of our children through her Human Trafficking Task Force, a cooperative multi-agency law enforcement effort aimed at arresting and prosecuting those who prey on our children and youth while finding ways to rescue these traumatized victims with a safety net of services. As Florida’s only State Attorney that enforces child support, she has collected over $1.7 billion dollars in the last 10 years for our children and their families.
State Attorney Fernandez Rundle works hard to understand and address our community’s changing needs. Recognizing the rising number of crimes committed against the elderly and vulnerable adults, she formed a joint public-private task force to better protect them. After the Champlain Towers collapsed in 2021, killing 98 people, she dispatched a Chief Assistant and seven victim witness counselors to the scene and advocated for legislation to ensure it never happens again. After hearing from the community about rising fraud by home and condominium associations, she worked with the Grand Jury to recommend reforms, created a unit to prosecute these fraudsters authored and advocated for legislation to promote transparency, investigations, and prosecutions.

Finally, State Attorney Fernandez Rundle recognizes that preventing crime is critical to her mission. She has implemented numerous ground-breaking innovations that strategically divert low-level offenders who do not threaten public safety from the traditional criminal justice system. In 1989, she conceived of and helped implement the nation’s first Drug Court, leading to a national movement. Since that time, she has implemented or helped develop civil citations, her Second Chance Program that provides monthly Sealing and Expungement opportunities, and more. Research consistently shows that these programs address the participants’ criminogenic needs, save tax dollars, and reduce recidivism and victimization.

State Attorney Fernandez Rundle has received dozens of awards and is a Member of Florida’s Women’s Hall of Fame. She received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and both her post-graduate and law degrees from the University of Cambridge Law School in England.

Hilarie Bass is a nationally recognized trial lawyer, having tried
cases for more then 35 years and who was inducted into the
American College of Trial Lawyers. She served as the Co-
President of Greenberg Traurig, an international law firm of more
then 2000 lawyers with more then 40 global offices, after having
served for 8 years as the Chair of the Litigation Practice Group,
made up of more then 600 attorneys. She served as President of
the American Bar Association in the years 2017-18, having earlier
served as the Chair of the Litigation Section of the ABA. In 2019,
she left the active practice of law to create and serve as
President of the Bass Institute for Diversity and Inclusion. In that
role, she has done speaking throughout the world as an
evangelist for gender parity and an outspoken advocate for
expanding the ranks of women leaders at corporations, nonprofits
and other institutions.

Hilarie has also served as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of
the University of Miami, and is a current Board member of
UHealth, a $5 billion healthcare company. She serves as a Board
Member of Dolphin Entertainment, Inc., a NASDAQ traded
company. She also is the current Co-Chair of the ABA’s Center
for Practice Innovation, and a Board member of the ABA
Retirement Fund. She previously served as Chair of the Board of
United Way of Miami Dade. She is a graduate of the University of
Miami School of Law where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Tiffani G. Lee is the deputy managing partner of Holland & Knight. Together with the firm's chair and managing partner, she oversees the strategic growth of the firm and manages its operations.

As firmwide Diversity Partner from 2008 to 2024, Ms. Lee has been the primary architect behind Holland & Knight's Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) initiatives, which have led to multiple recognitions for the firm by the legal industry and its clients. In that role, she also led Holland & Knight's Diversity Council and served on the firm's Practice & Operations Committee and Firmwide Partner Compensation Committee.

Over the years, Ms. Lee's legal practice has focused on commercial litigation and DEI counseling. She has experience prosecuting and defending claims on behalf of business clients in a variety of industries. She has also handled contract disputes, corporate dissolution actions, securities fraud actions, shareholder derivative actions and actions alleging various business torts.

As a member of the firm's DEI Task Force, Ms. Lee has leveraged her DEI leadership experience and subject matter knowledge to advise management teams and board members with regard to meeting evolving shareholder and stakeholder expectations for environmental, social and governance (ESG) compliance.

In the community, Ms. Lee is a member of the Orange Bowl Committee, Greater Miami Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, the Eleventh Judicial Circuit Professionalism Panel and the board of directors of the Florida Justice Institute.