Sarah M. Papadelias's Profile Image

Sarah M. Papadelias

Phone: 813-435-1615
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Sarah joined Shullman Fugate in March 2023. Her practice focuses on defamation, intellectual property, and content-related litigation.

Sarah’s interest in media law began during her undergraduate studies, working at the University of Alabama’s student newspaper, The Crimson White. She then attended the University of Florida, where she received both her J.D. and Master’s in Mass Communications. While at the University of Florida, she served as the editor of The Brechner Report and in various roles at The Brechner Center for Freedom of Information. She also worked at the Federal Communications Commission in Washington, DC, as a law clerk for Chief Administrative Law Judge Richard Sippel and for Commissioner Mignon L. Clyburn. She wrote her Master’s thesis on net neutrality and internet policy.

Sarah currently serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Florida, where she teaches Law of Mass Communications to undergraduate students.

Prior to joining the firm, Sarah spent five years in private practice in a variety of civil litigation roles. Her litigation experience includes personal injury, products liability, construction defect, professional malpractice, consumer finance, and commercial litigation. She began her legal career as a trial court law clerk at the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit in Palm Beach County, Florida, where she gained experience in all aspects of civil, criminal, and family litigation.

Education

  • J.D., cum laude, University of Florida, 2016
  • M.A. in Mass Communications, University of Florida, 2016
  • B.A. in Classics, summa cum laude, University of Alabama, 2012

Bar Admissions

  • Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida
  • U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida

Publications

  • Co-Author, Free Speech in the “Free State,” MLRC Bulletin: Supreme Court and First Amendment Developments (July 2023).
  • Co-Author, Proposed Florida Defamation Legislation, MLRC MediaLawLetter (June 2023)
  • Co-author, Avoiding Legal Malpractice During the COVID-19 Pandemic, The Trial Advocate Quarterly (Vol. 51, 2021).
  • Author, A “Net” Gain for Society?: Examining the Legal Challenge to the FCC’s Net Neutrality Order, Master’s Thesis (2016).
  • Co-author, Rap Music and the True Threats Quagmire: When Does One Man’s Lyric Become Another’s Crime?, Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts (2014).
  • Co-author, Bag Men and the Ghost of Richard Jewell: Some Legal and Ethical Lessons About Implied Defamation, Headlines and Reporting on Breaking Criminal Activity from Barhoum v. NYP Holdings, Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (2014).
  • Co-author, Plausible Pleading & Media Defendant Status: Fulfilled Promises, Unfinished Business in Libel Law on the Golden Anniversary of Sullivan, Wake Forest Law Review (2014).