McMurdo, Kevin

James J. McGuire is an antitrust lawyer, media lawyer, and commercial litigator, representing clients in state and federal court, and before the American Arbitration Association. Jim's areas of focus include media and First Amendment law, trademark, copyright, and unfair competition. In 2007 and 2008, he was honored as one of the Legal Elite best lawyers in Florida (by Florida Trend Magazine).

Along with defamation and right of privacy cases, Jim has litigated several key cases concerning media access to judicial records, including Media General Operations, Inc. v. State, 933 So.2d 1199 (Fla.2dDCA 2006), Sarasota Herald-Tribune v. State, 924 So. 2d 8 (Fla. 2d DCA 2005), and Media General Convergence, Inc. v. Chief Judge of the Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, 840 So. 2d 1008 (Fla. 2003). On behalf of the producers of the film, The Perfect Storm, Jim was one of the lead attorneys in the Tyne v. Time-Warner Entertainment, Co., 901 So.2d 802 (Fla. 2005), in which the Florida Supreme Court affirmed the right of creative artists to comment on historical individuals without their consent. As a commercial litigator, Jim has represented clients in a wide range of fields, including medical equipment, telephone switching systems, book printing, business equipment, and aviation systems. In Gladys C. Clavel Ranch, Inc. v. Edwards (DeSoto County, Fla., No. 99-0824 CA), Jim successfully represented a client seeking to reverse an improper three-million dollar real estate transaction.

Before entering private practice in 1994, Jim clerked for the Honorable Karen L. Henderson on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Jim is a member of the Florida and District of Columbia Bars. He is admitted to practice before the Florida Supreme Court, the North Carolina Supreme Court, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, the Eleventh Circuit, the D.C. Circuit, and the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida.

As a member of the Honors Program in English and American Literature, Jim received his bachelor's degree from Brown University in 1985. In 1988, he received his master's degree in English Literature from The Johns Hopkins University.

Jim earned his law degree, with high honors, in 1993 from the University of North Carolina, where he graduated first in his class. At the University of North Carolina he was an E.M.W. Cameron Scholar and won the West Publishing Company Book Award - for highest GPA - in each of his three years. Jim was a member and an Articles Editor of the University of North Carolina Law Review and is the author of Schad v. Arizona: Diminishing the Need for Verdict Specificity, 70 N.C.L. Rev. 936 (1992).

Jim and his wife, Leslie, and their daughter, Emma, live in the Hyde Park area of Tampa in a house built in 1900 (and constantly in need of repair).