Dawn Vallejos-Nichols graduated with Honors from the University of Florida College of Law in 1994. Following graduation, Dawn was employed for two years as an attorney with Three Rivers Legal Services, where she had interned with a fellowship grant during her final year of law school.
Since joining Avera & Smith in 1996, Dawn has represented Florida’s injured in personal injury cases of almost every description. She now serves as Managing Partner for Avera & Smith.
Dawn’s primary focus at the firm now is wrongful death and personal injury litigation against tobacco manufacturing giants R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and Philip Morris USA, Inc. Dawn played an instrumental role in winning three of the most significant cases in recent years with verdicts against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company – one verdict for $34.7 million, another for $17.5 million and yet another for $15.5 million. Additional successful verdicts were rendered against both R.J. Reynolds and Philip Morris for $17.4 million and $5 million.
These cases received national attention and set an important precedent for all attorneys who battle the endless resources and limitless dollars that tobacco companies use in their efforts to deny victims who have suffered illness and death from the use of their products. To date, Dawn has been involved in the trial of 15 tobacco cases and is currently working to bring more cases to trial this year and next.
Dawn has served on the board of directors of the Eighth Judicial Circuit Bar Association continuously since 2005 and served as its President from 2012–13. She has also edited the EJCBA’s monthly newsletter, Forum 8, since 2005 and received the President’s Award for Service for that publication in 2007. She also sits on the Judicial Nominating Commission for the Northern Conference in Florida and has done so since 2013. She is a member of the Gerald T. Bennett American Inns of Court and serves at the “Master” level. In the community, she served for several years as a member of the Constituency Board for CARD, the Center for Autism and Related Disabilities. She currently serves on the board of directors for both the Guardian Foundation and Three Rivers Legal Services; she is currently Chair-Elect for the Guardian Foundation.
For the past three years, Dawn was honored by the American Institute of Personal Injury Attorneys as one of the 10 Best Female Attorneys for Client Satisfaction in North Florida. She was also named a Lawyer of Distinction in both 2019 and 2020.
Dawn and her husband, Eduardo, an Associate Professor at the University of Florida, have two grown daughters, Natalia and Sophia.
