Brigitta Hawkins

Biography

I was born and raised in Austria where I was one of two daughters of a small hotel owner. My schooling in Austria was in the hotel business with the intention to take over my parent’s hotel. After working as a waitress in Switzerland, I took a job as an Au Pair in Florida. I learned to speak English in conversational settings. I returned to Austria and completed my education in order to take over my family’s hotel. Upon completion, I came to Florida again as Au Pair at the age of 25. I met my husband and we got married 30 days later. I took a job cleaning rooms at a large hotel chain in Cocoa Beach for 4 months before I was hired to open up and manage a small motel in Rockledge, Brevard County. Since I only learned to speak English in conversational settings and had no written language skills, I had my husband correct every letter I sent out while working as the manager.

After 3 years, I had our son, and stopped working to be a stay-at-home mother. When our son started pre-Kindergarten, I started attending college classes at the community college. Initially, I took one class at a time, but as my language skills improved I was able to increase my class load to 3 classes at a time. The first struggle was trying to understand the new vocabulary of the different subjects.  In one of my first classes, Communications I, the teacher talked about “fads” and for the life of me I could not figure out what he was talking about. Finally, I raised my hand and when called upon I asked what a “fad” was. The entire class erupted in laughter, but the teacher was kind enough to try to explain to me that it is a trend – so my question was “what is that?”, so he started talking about bell-bottoms, which I also did not know why he would start talking about bells and their bottoms. When he started drawing a timeline on the chalkboard, I finally figured it out. The next challenge was the first essay which appeared to be an almost insurmountable task. Through all my challenges, my perseverance brought me all the way through law school to becoming a partner at a law firm.

Before working Of Counsel with Bogin, Munns & Munns as a Social Security Disability attorney, I was Assistant Public Defender in Brevard County, misdemeanor division 5, handling all aspects of the docket including motion practice, jury trials, Violation of Probation hearings, and traffic hearings from 9/2006 to 9/2007.  I was an Associate Attorney at a private law firm in Titusville, handling criminal cases initially and transitioning into Social Security Disability law where I handled all aspects of the claims process from January 2008 through February 2017 and built up the practice area for the firm.  I became a Partner at the Titusville law firm in January 2013, handling all aspects of Social Security Disability Claims, Workers’ Compensation Claims, Criminal Law, Personal Injury, and Veterans’ Claims.

Since my first career was in the hotel business, that is the path I would have had to follow, had I remained in Austria. However, I came to Florida in 1990, became a U.S. Citizen in 1996 and was able to fulfill my dream of becoming a lawyer.

Since childhood, I always admired lawyers on television shows but I was not fluent in the English language, thus I never imagined that I could become a lawyer. After my son was born, I started school at Brevard Community College and learned the language by attending classes and the help of my husband. All throughout and to date, I love to watch lawyer shows.

I can help people in need and show them the way to a successful Social Security Disability claim. Also, I enjoy interacting with clients in all ways of live. The practice of law is always challenging and rewarding to me.  My biggest strength is ability to connect with my clients. I am passionate and determined to do the best job I can for my client.

Outside work, I own 3 horses, 2 donkeys, 3 dogs, and one mule. I love to ride my horses and enjoy working with my mule and donkeys.
I also love to practice shooting at steel targets and would love to start competition shooting again.

I am also the founder of the Space Coast Community Law School which started giving free legal seminars to the public in 2010 and is ongoing.