Patricia Strowbridge

Patricia Strowbridge has been practicing law here in Central Florida for 25 years. After starting her own firm in 1989, she began focusing her practice on marital and family law, distinguishing herself with a coveted “AV” rating of professional competence and ethics in just ten years, as one of the youngest lawyers to receive that rating from Martindale-Hubbell.

In 1996, Patricia Strowbridge became Florida Bar Board Certified in Marital and Family Law, and in 2011, she also became Board Certified in Adoption Law, when that certification was first created. She is the only attorney in the State of Florida to hold those dual certifications, and in 2012, the Florida Bar Board of Governors appointed her to the Adoption Law Certification Committee, where she served for one year evaluating other applications for Board Ceritification.

In 1999, Patricia founded the non-profit adoption agency, A Chosen Child, Inc. and serves as its Executive Director to this day, along with running her busy law practice with her partner, Christine E. Arendas, Esquire, specializing in adoption and assisted reproductive technology law.

Patricia is a Fellow of both the American Academy of Adoption Attorneys and the American Academy of Assisted Reproductive Technology Attorneys, the top two national professional organizations for her area of practice.
From 2002-2004, Patricia served as President of the Florida Adoption Council and she has served on the Executive Board of that organization in various other capacities as well. about-patricia-2

In 2012, the Florida Adoption Council presented her with a Lifetime Achievement Award for her service to Florida families and children.

While on the Executive Board of the Council, Patricia served on both the Legislative Committee and the Amicus Committee. In those roles, she was the primary author of both the 2003 Florida Adoption Reform Act which created the Florida Putative Father Registry and the 2012 Florida Adoption Act which created a statutory requirement that the Florida Department of Children and Families work cooperatively with private agencies and attorneys to permit parents facing a termination of parental rights to choose an adoptive family for their child. On behalf of the Council, she authored the successful Amicus Brief in the landmark 2007 Florida Supreme Court case, Heart of Adoptions, Inc. v JA, defending the Florida Putative Father Registry from a constitutionality attack.

From 2004 to the present, Patricia has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Barry Law School, where she teaches upper division law students, and she has professionally mentored numerous young lawyers after they graduated.

Although her list of professional accomplishments is lengthy and impressive, Patricia also regularly serves her community through her church and spends time with her five children and three young grandchildren. She was married for 15 years to the Hon. Bob Wattles, Ninth Circuit Judge who lost a courageous battle with cancer in 2010. She shares her late husband’s commitment to our local legal community and a profound respect for the judicial system.

We believe Patricia would be the kind of Judge we need serving the citizens of Orange and Osceola County.