Judge Blake Adams was elected to the Collier County Court bench in November 2018 and took office on January 8, 2019. Judge Adams graduated from William Jewell College with a Bachelor of Arts in International Commerce and Diplomacy. For approximately ten years, Judge Adams worked in the financial services industry in retail investments, banking, and residential mortgages. Judge Adams then attended the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Juris Doctor and Master of Business Administration. Immediately following graduate school, he became a temporary faculty member at the University of Tulsa College of Law joining the teaching team of “Introduction to Legal Research” to first-year law students.

In January 2010, Judge Adams became a Staff Attorney for the 20th Judicial Circuit where he worked for the Circuit Court judges until April 2014. As a Staff Attorney, he worked with more than thirty judges and wrote more than 900 court orders, appellate opinions, and legal memoranda. Prior to his election, Judge Adams was an Assistant Public Defender with the Law Offices of Kathleen A. Smith, Public Defender 20th Judicial Circuit, for nearly five years where he served as the Collier County Deputy Chief, supervising and training attorneys practicing in County Court and Juvenile Court; represented clients charged with felonies in Circuit Court; and was the lead and founding defense attorney of the Rapid Response Squad—a group consisting of members from the State Attorney’s Office, Collier County Sheriff’s Office, David Lawrence Center, and other organizations who identify frequently incarcerated individuals for low level offenses with severe mental illnesses and attempt to obtain treatment for those individuals in order to stop recidivism and make the community safer.

Judge Adams is and has been an active participant or volunteer for many local organizations and served on the Lely High School Criminal Justice Academic Advisory Board and currently serves on the board of directors form the Michael R.N. McDonnell chapter of the American Inns of Court. Judge Adams currently presides on cases in the Collier County Court Criminal Division having previously presided over cases in the Civil Division.