Sheena Rickerson is the owner of Rickerson Legal, P.A., and handles criminal law and family law. She has been practicing law for over 9 years. She recently became Board Certified in Criminal Trial Law in August 2022 and is considered an expert in this area of the law. She was previously a partner at Carmichael & Rickerson, PLLC until June 1, 2022 when she opened Rickerson Legal, P.A. She is also currently the Town Attorney for the Town of Jennings, Florida, where she practices governmental law. She was appointed by the council in September of 2020.

Sheena brings to the table six years of past litigation experience as a prosecutor and prior to that over an estimated ten years of experience in the areas of family law and criminal law. She is a former prosecutor with the Third Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office who served as a felony line assistant state attorney for five out of her six years of state service. Sheena has tried over forty jury and non-jury trials with fifteen of those being felony trials as lead counsel. She has handled dozens of other non-jury trials both felony and misdemeanor across the Third Judicial Circuit. Sheena began her prosecuting career as a misdemeanor prosecutor in both Hamilton and Madison Counties. Within her first year with the office, she became a misdemeanor prosecutor in Suwannee County. During her first year as a prosecutor, Sheena was awarded “Prosecutor of the Year” by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission. Ultimately, Sheena was promoted to a felony prosecutor and worked in both Suwannee and Hamilton counties on the felony line. In November of 2018, Sheena won a stand your ground appeal while prosecuting an attempted murder case in which she argued the new burden of the State in proving lack of self-defense that the legislature recently changed in 2017. The First District Court of Appeals of Florida issued an opinion and the case decision made Florida Law Weekly (Craven v. State, 285 So. 3d 365 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2019).

Prior to becoming a prosecutor, Sheena was an intern with the Eighth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office, working in the Macclenny branch during her third year of law school where she assisted felony prosecutors with trying cases. She was also a paralegal for over 10 years before she made the decision to go to law school to become an attorney. While a paralegal, she worked primarily as a family law paralegal, even doing contract paralegal work during law school and after before waiting to be hired as a prosecutor. She has worked for many solo practitioners and boutique firms that handled family law, criminal law, workers compensation, social security disability, personal injury and insurance defense. As a family law paralegal, Sheena specialized in Divorce Power Analyzer software to assist clients with child support and alimony calculations as well as financial discovery.

Sheena graduated from the University of North Florida with her bachelor’s degree in Political Science in 2007. During her last year of college, she went to class at night while working during the day as a family and criminal law paralegal. She attended law school at Florida Coastal School of Law where she received her Juris doctor degree in 2012 where she graduated with pro bono honors. She also received a CALI award for making the highest grade in Practical Professionalism. While at FCSL, she served as secretary and parliamentarian of the Criminal Law Society. Sheena clerked for two circuit Court Judges in Duval County and completed an internship with the Fourth Judicial Circuit Public Defender’s Office during her law school track.

Sheena was born and raised in Jacksonville, Florida before she moved to Live Oak, Florida where she took a job as a prosecutor in February of 2014 with the Third Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office and then later moved to Jasper, Florida when she got engaged to her Husband. She has resided in Jasper, Florida for the last 8 years with her Husband Tony who is the Interim Chief at the Jasper Police Department and her three children. Sheena is a past member of the Family Law Inns of Court in Duval County, Jacksonville Women’s Lawyer Association, Jacksonville Bar Association and Altrusa in Live Oak, Florida. Sheena served as a past Commissioner on the Third Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission from 2018 to 2022. Sheena was nominated by the Florida Bar and appointed by Governor Rick Scott for a four-year term beginning in 2018.

Sheena is President of the Third Judicial Circuit Chapter of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers where she has served in that capacity for the last two years and a current member of the Third Judicial Circuit Bar Association. She recently received her local chapter’s Leader in the Law Award in June 2022. Sheena also had the opportunity to be a faculty member/ teacher at the 2022 annual criminal trial advocacy program put on each year by the University of Florida at Levin College of Law where she taught prosecutors and public defenders trial advocacy for over a week. She is also a member of the Local Hamilton County Lion’s Club and the Chamber of Commerce in Columbia and Hamilton Counties.