Sheena Holland Rickerson

Sheena Rickerson is the owner of Rickerson Legal, P.A., and handles criminal law and family law. She has been practicing law for over 13 years. She is Board Certified in Criminal Trial Law and has been since August 2022. She 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 the town attorney for Jennings, Florida. She is also the Code Enforcement Magistrate for Madison County and the City of Madison. Sheena is also one of the on call attorneys for The Fraternal Order of Police in North Florida. Sheena recently was appointed to the Florida Bar Board of Governors as the Representative for the Third Judicial Circuit. Sheena previously ran against the currently appointed County Judge, Judge Jamie Tyndal and earned approximately 40 % of the vote. Her office is locate in Downtown Jasper.

Sheena handles criminal defense both for adults and juveniles, uncontested family law matters, dependency cases, probate cases, and estate planning such as wills, powers of attorney, and advanced directives. She handles cases in North Florida and surrounding counties. The counties include Hamilton, Madison, Suwannee, Columbia, Taylor, Dixie, Lafayette, Alachua, Gilchrest, Levy, Bradford, Baker, and Duval.

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 fifty-five 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 late Husband who was the Chief of Police until his line of duty death in June 2023. She has resided in Jasper, Florida for the last 11 years with 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 the past President of the Third Judicial Circuit Chapter of the Florida Association of Women Lawyers where she has served in that capacity for two terms, and a currently on the board serving as the membership director. She is also a member of the Third Judicial Circuit Bar Association and has been since she began practicing in the circuit in 2014. She is currently a member of the Board, serving as member-at large. She received her local chapter’s Leader in the Law Award in June 2022. Sheena has also had the opportunity to be a faculty member/ teacher for three years at the 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 at the PPD Program. She is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce in Columbia and Hamilton Counties.