Ed Baxa is chair of Foley's National Pro Bono Committee, a former member of the firm's Management Committee, and the former managing partner of the Orlando office. He is a member of the Construction and Government Enforcement, Compliance & White Collar Defense Practices and the Life Sciences Industry Team.
Mr. Baxa maintains a complex commercial litigation practice focusing on construction law. This specialty includes representation of owners, general contractors, design professionals, subcontractors, and suppliers in contract drafting and negotiation, bid protests, workouts, claims litigation, and arbitration proceedings. He has tried cases involving a myriad of construction projects, including resort hotels, wastewater treatment plants, shopping centers, and residential developments. In addition to his work in the construction industry, Mr. Baxa also represents various corporate clients in connection with government and internal investigations. He has considerable experience representing health care clients on fraud and abuse issues and in qui tam actions.
Mr. Baxa has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system and is listed in Chambers USA: America's Leading Business Lawyers, The Best Lawyers in America® and was named one of Florida's Legal Elite in a Bar survey published by Florida Trend. In addition, Mr. Baxa has been selected for inclusion in the 2006 - 2011 Florida Super Lawyers® lists. The Legal Aid Society of the Orange County Bar Association selected him as the recipient of the 2011 Judge J C Jake Stone Distinguished Service Award.
Mr. Baxa serves on the Board of Overseers of the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins College, and is on the Board of the Mennello Museum of American Art. He received the Legal Aid Society Award of Excellence for his work with abused and neglected children and served on the Orange County Commission on the Arts. He was formerly a member of the boards of the American Cancer Society and the Associated General Contractors of America.
Mr. Baxa is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Virginia (B.A., with high distinction, 1975) and its School of Law (J.D., 1978). Following his two-year tenure as senior law fellow at the University of Virginia's Center for Law and Medicine, he was awarded an LL.M in 1980.
He was admitted to The Virginia Bar in 1978 and The Florida Bar in 1980. Mr. Baxa is also admitted to practice before the United States District Courts for the Western District of Virginia and the Middle District of Florida.
His outside interests include rowing, snow skiing and the blues.