About Rusty
Rusty Shepard earned his law degree from Florida State University College of Law. He came up through courtroom work early in his career and carried that experience into private practice. His education at FSU provided a foundation in trial advocacy and state procedure that shaped his next steps.
He began his legal career as an Assistant State Lawyer in Chipley, Florida, in 2000. The prosecutorial work there exposed him to a steady docket of criminal matters and to the practical demands of litigating in county courts. Four years later he moved into private practice as a founding partner of Appleman, Shepard & Trucks, a firm he helped establish in 2004. Seven years after that he started Shepard Law in 2011, the firm he leads today.
Shepard is admitted to practice in Florida and in several federal courts, including the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida. He handles both state and federal matters and has courtroom experience spanning arraignments through jury trials and appeals. He is comfortable managing cases at different stages and coordinating litigation strategies across trial and appellate levels.
Professional involvement has been a steady part of his career. He has served on the Florida Bar’s Law Related Education Committee from 2003 to 2009. He held the presidency of the Bay County Chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers from 2007 to 2010. He was president of the Bay County Bar Association from 2007 to 2011, and he remains active in the Bay County Bar Association. He is a member of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Criminal Justice Section of the American Bar Association. He also serves as a bencher for the St. Andrew’s Bay Inns of Court.
Colleagues and clients see him most often in criminal matters. He manages pretrial investigations, evidentiary hearings and trials. He also appears in appellate proceedings when cases move beyond the trial court. His practice leans on practical courtroom experience built over two decades in both public and private roles.
At Shepard Law he handles a range of criminal defense matters in state and federal courts. He combines courtroom familiarity from his years as a prosecutor with the defense perspective he has developed as a private lawyer. He currently focuses his practice on criminal defense in state and federal courts.
