Celeste Higgins began her career clerking for the Honorable Federico A. Moreno in the Southern District of Florida. With that experience, and knowing she wanted to be a trial lawyer and a criminal defense attorney, she joined the Federal Public Defender’s Office in the Southern District of Florida.

For over 33 years, she has represented numerous individuals in federal court in cases ranging from: international terrorism; international drug trafficking; OFAC charges; aggravated identity theft; fraud cases including securities, bank, insurance, consumer, mail, and wire fraud; slavery charges against a Miami-Dade professor; bank robbery; a diverse selection of Medicare fraud cases, extortion, gun statute violations; drug offenses, immigration offenses, child pornography, and cruise ship rape on the high seas.

Celeste has tried over 100 federal cases, including bench trials and civil forfeiture cases. She has appeared as counsel in over 1000 cases in federal court in the Southern District of Florida. As a Federal Public Defender, Celeste has represented clients from all walks of life including professionals and business leaders. Celeste was recognized in Super Lawyers for government representation. While at the Federal Public Defender’s Office, she became a Supervising Attorney responsible for supervising new attorneys.

Celeste has extensive pretrial motion experience, including motions to suppress, motions to dismiss, post-trial motions, sentencing memoranda, and post-conviction relief. She also has significant appellate experience.

Celeste is known to take on each and every case as if it is the most important case in her career knowing that for every client, theirs is the most important case of their lives. She is fierce in her commitment to defend every client, every case, every charge in which she is involved.

Celeste has also dedicated a significant part of her career to teaching trial skills. She has been an adjunct faculty member at the University of Miami School of Law for 20 years—starting as one of the youngest lawyers to be given that honor. Between the time she left the Federal Public Defender’s Office and started her own law firm in 2019, Celeste was the acting director of the Litigation Skills Program at the University of Miami, School of Law. In addition to teaching in the US, she has been teaching trial skills, oral advocacy and consulting in Rule of Law initiative programs internationally for 15 years. In that capacity, she has lectured to students, attorneys, law professors, and judges. Her fluency in Spanish allows her to teach, train, write, and lecture on legal subjects in Spanish for native speakers.

In 2017, she was elected into the American College of Trial Lawyers where she participates on the State Committee vetting future members and also in the National Mock Trial Competition committee which overseas the prestigious mock trial competition at the law school level.

Education

• B.B.A., University of Miami School of Business, 1984

• J.D., University of Miami School of Law, 1990

  CLERKSHIP

• Hon. Judge Federico A. Moreno, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida, 1990-1991

  
  ADMISSIONS

• Florida

• U.S. Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit

• U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida

• U.S. District Court, Middle District of Florida

  ASSOCIATIONS  

  American College of Trial Lawyers
  (Inducted 2017)

• State Committee Member

• National Mock Trial Competition Committee Member

• Regent Selection Committee Member

  Federal Bar Association

• Past President 2008-2009

• Member, Board of Directors

• Chair, Women’s Initiative Programs

• Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (FACDL), Miami Chapter, Member, Past Secretary, and Past Board Member

• Criminal Justice Act (CJA) Committee, Member

• Criminal Justice Act (CJA), Panel member

• National Criminal Defense College, graduate, 1993

• Southern District of Florida Ad Hoc Committee on Attorney Admissions, Peer Review, and Attorney Grievance, Member

• Florida Bar, Member Criminal Law Section

• Florida Bar Grievance Committee, Member (2 terms)

  
  PUBLICATIONS & LECTURES 
  

• Presenter, 2024 American College of Trial Lawyers Annual Meeting

• Panelist, ABA, 39th Annual National Institute on White Collar Crime, Skills – Trial Practice Fundamentals III: Opening and Closing Statements

• University of Miami School of Law, Adjunct Faculty Member Litigation Skills Program (2000-present)

• University of Miami School of Law, Associate/Acting Director of the Litigation Skills Program (2018-2019)

• University of San Diego, Lecturer, OASIS Justice in Mexico Program

• American Bar Association, Lecturer and Consultant, Rule of Law Initiative Programs, Caribbean and South America, Lecturer and Professor, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Guatemala and Mexico

• National Institute of Trial Attorneys (NITA), Presenter and Lecturer

• Conference of Western Attorneys General (CWAG), Lecturer and Consultant

• Attorney General Alliance (AGA), Lecturer and Consultant

• Checchi and Company, Rule of Law Initiative Programs, Central and South America, Lecturer and Consultant in Colombia and El Salvador

• National Public Radio, Morning Edition: Ex-Florida Deputy Faces 11 Charges After Not intervening in School Shooting, Analyst

• Wall Street Journal, Deputy at Parkland School Shooting is Arrested, Analyst

• Miami Law Explainer (University of Miami School of Law): Season 2, Episode 1: A Billionaire Pedophile’s Sweetheart Deal

• New York Daily News: The Patriot Act and the Patriots owner: How the government abused its power to spy on Robert Kraft and sex workers, OP ED

• TC Palm: Could Robert Kraft skate because of “fake bomb threat” used to get video evidence? Analyst

• Sun Sentinel: Is sex trafficking enough reason for sneak-and-peek cameras? Legal experts aren’t so sure, Analyst