​John Bowman is a circuit judge based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. A professional with many years of experience, Judge Bowman was recently reappointed to the Florida Supreme Court Bar Admission Committee. Judge John Bowman is a staunch advocate of National Adoption Day.

An event to encourage adoption and awareness of the children who are waiting in foster care and orphanages, National Adoption Day takes place on November 19th and originated in the year 2000. Since its start, National Adoption Day has helped place more than 50,000 children and adolescents with new families. 

National Adoption Day is a community effort. Community administrators encourage local orphanages and foster care families to set up events on the day, giving them creative leeway in the planning and activities. 

After November 19th, new families are asked to participate in the One Day project to inspire future adoptions. The One Day project is a simple social media plan in which new parents and adoptees share their personal stories of the day they became a family.

​Judge John Bowman received his bachelors degree in public administration from Florida Atlantic University, where he was a Phi Theta Kappa scholar. To become a member of Phi Theta Kappa, Judge John Bowman was required to fulfill certain eligibility requirements. The requirements necessary today are as follows:

Potential members must be enrolled in an accredited institution and have completed at least 12 hours of coursework that can be applied toward an associate degree. Local chapters determine the eligibility of part-time students. Generally, a student must have a grade point average of 3.5 or higher; however, local chapters may raise GPA standards in accordance with the Phi Theta Kappa constitution.

Moral standards for the society are in place and potential members must adhere to them. For example, anyone currently incarcerated is not eligible. Additionally, an invitation to membership must be received from the chapter within the college the student currently attends. 

​With a law career spanning nearly two decades, Judge John Bowman works as a circuit court judge in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, serving a jurisdiction of more than 1.8 million constituents. Judge John Bowman has worked to enact positive changes in his community. For instance, he has influenced cases of adoption, lowering the time it takes for local children to find permanent home placement from four years to six months or less.

Advocacy for children in the foster care system takes many forms. One type of effort, held annually across the country, is National Adoption Day. Launched in 1999, the one-day event happens each year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving in cities around the US. As a result of the multiple agencies and sponsors coming together on behalf of this mission, 4,000 children were adopted during National Adoption Day in 2015. It was the 16th-annual celebration of the initiative.

A member of the Florida Bar for nearly three decades, Judge John Bowman was elected to serve as a circuit judge in 2002, leading him to the Juvenile Dependency Division in the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. Judge John Bowman has also been involved in a number of noteworthy cases in Broward County, including a lawsuit related to the 2016 Republican presidential primary ballot.

In March 2016, he ruled against an attempt to have Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz removed from the ballot based on a claim that the candidates aren’t natural-born citizens and are therefore ineligible to run for president. The lawsuit claimed that both Cruz and Rubio became citizens without undertaking a legal naturalization process and argued that a person can’t simultaneously be naturalized and natural-born.

During the hearing, Judge Bowman explained that the while the Constitution requires a president to be natural-born, there is no binding definition of the term. He also rejected the lawsuit because the plaintiff failed to include the Florida Secretary of State as a defendant. Responsible for the Division of Elections, the Secretary of State's office alone can be compelled to eliminate a candidate from a ballot. Judge Bowman further noted that there were no grounds for the lawsuit since the plaintiff wasn’t injured by Cruz and Rubio being on the ballot.

​An elected circuit judge in the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, Judge John Bowman handles adoption and foster care matters within the Juvenile Dependency Division of Broward County. Judge John Bowman also contributes to local legal organizations and is invited to speak on different topics to various groups, including the American Board of Trial Advocates.

Among its many initiatives, the American Board of Trial Advocates maintains the Civility Matters program to fulfill its constitutional mandate to promote courtesy, honor, and integrity in the legal field. The Board founded the program with the goal that civility would be discussed at every law school in the country and at every Trial Advocates educational event, as well as in various professional settings.

Around the nation, local chapters of the American Board of Trial Advocates promote and host Civility Matters events that include direct accounts from members about their experience practicing courtesy, honor, and integrity and raising peer awareness of the issue. The American Board of Trial Advocates provides helpful guidelines and the resources necessary to hold a Civility Matters event, including the Why Civility and Why Now? publication and accompanying DVDs. 

​Judge John Bowman serves as a circuit judge in the state of Florida. After noting several failures and inefficiencies in Florida’s juvenile detention and foster care systems, Judge John Bowman initiated several programs to help improve care for Florida’s youth. One such program is National Adoption Day, which he brought to Broward and other Florida counties.

National Adoption Day raises awareness of the many children in the American foster care system who need loving, permanent homes. More than 100,000 children across the country are waiting to be adopted. National Adoption Day helps make their dreams come true.

Responding to overwhelming need, lawmakers, advocates, and charities came together to create the holiday in 2000. Communities celebrate the special nature of adoption together through fundraisers, letter-writing drives, and public awareness campaigns. The festivities culminate in the finalization of many adoptions all over the country.

National Adoption Day is celebrated the Saturday before Thanksgiving each year. The 2015 event helped more than 4,000 children find homes, bringing the total number of adoptions to more than 58,500 since National Adoption Day was founded.

In 2016, the annual event will be held on November 19. People who wish to support National Adoption Day can get involved online at www.nationaladoptionday.org/get-involved.                             

Judge John Bowman has implemented positive reforms to adoption mandates and helped streamline the judicial process as a judge in the 17th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida. Outside of the courtroom, Judge John Bowman works to raise adoption awareness through public speaking engagements and his participation in National Adoption Day. 

Now in its 15th year, National Adoption Day is an annual event intended to raise the public’s awareness of the foster care system’s more than 100,000 children currently waiting to be placed with loving adoptive families. National Adoption Day is celebrated by policymakers, practitioners, adoption advocates, adoptive families, and the general public every Saturday before Thanksgiving at events in communities across the United States. 

On November 22, 2014, individuals in 400 U.S. cities participated in National Adoption Day events, and 4,500 children around the country were adopted by their forever families. Since it was first launched in 2000, National Adoption Day has helped over 54,000 children move out of foster care and into permanent homes. 

Judge John Bowman, a circuit judge for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit for Florida, has been an advocate for streamlining procedures in the state's juvenile courts. In addition to public service, Judge John Bowman also participates in the advancement of his profession by lecturing at such organizations as the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA).

Located in Dallas, Texas, the ABOTA seeks to protect the right to a jury trial, as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights. Achieving this goal includes promoting the concept among trial lawyers before they enter practice.

For the past few years, ABOTA has sponsored the National Trial College for third- and fourth-year students. Using a mock courtroom, experienced judges and lawyers provided thorough instruction in preparing for trials, designing solid opening statements, and delivering strong closing arguments.

After four days of in-depth coaching, students staged a mock trial in the presence of a jury. After their presentation, they watched the jury arrive at its decision. Faculty members evaluated the students on their courtroom performance. A graduation ceremony followed on the final evening.                             

Judge John Bowman, a circuit justice in Florida's 17th circuit, has received widespread attention as an advocate for children in foster care. Successfully reducing the number of adoption-eligible children in the Circuit's Juvenile Dependency division from 150 to only five, Judge John Bowman has continued to promote adoption and received the Guardian Ad Litem Program's community advocate award for his efforts.

For a child to be eligible for adoption in Florida, the birth mother and any other person entitled to custody must agree to the adoption. Any court-verified evidence of abuse or neglect automatically waives this requirement. Once the court has terminated parental rights, adoptive parents may finalize the adoption after 30 days or following 90 days in the adoptive home, whichever occurs later.

Once finalized, adoption means that the child in question becomes a legal part of the new family. The child receives a new birth certificate that names the adoptive parents as the child's parents, and most children receive a new name to reflect their new family situation. The adoptive family accepts all parental responsibilities for the child and gives the child equal legal status in relation to other current or future children of the family.