Who Forgot to Show Up? Inside the Legal Fumble That Could Cost Erika Jayne Millions

Woody Allen once said, “Eighty percent of success is just showing up.” On March 20, 2025, Tampa attorney Jim Wilkes failed that test. He didn’t show up. Big time. He was a no-call, no-show for a court hearing to defend his client, Erika Girardi, the subject of a multi-million dollar defamation suit in a Miami.

Wilkes placed 100 percent of the blame for his failure to appear on his hired help. The case may be that he was actually to blame. What is 100 percent true, is that you have to have an eligible license to practice law in Florida, or any of the other 49 states.

The day before this important hearing, Jim Wilkes did not have an eligible Florida law license. He knew it. So did the Florida Bar.

Wilkes is representing Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Girardi in a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court by Marco Morante. Morante and his business partner, Chris Psaila, own a costume design boutique in California which designed outfits Girardi, also known as dance club recording artist Erika Jayne, and her backup dancers wore in performances at nightclubs around the country. Girardi bought and wore her costumes from the boutique, Marco Marco, from 2014 to 2016. At the end of 2016, she accused the boutique of unauthorized charges on her American Express account. She received a refund and Psaila was indicted by a federal grand jury in Los Angeles in 2017. Psaila and Morante vigorously defended themselves against the allegations, and federal prosecutors had the case against Psaila dismissed in 2021.

The partners say the accusations were false, and the claims made by Girardi caused significant damage to their business and their reputations. Each man sued Girardi – Psaila in federal court in California and Morante in state court in Florida. Each case includes documentation that Girardi wore and performed in the costumes she claimed were fraudulently charged to her account.

Wilkes and his defense team have tried to get Morante’s case thrown out, claiming Florida courts have no jurisdiction over his dealings with Girardi. Judge Daryl Trawick set a March 20 hearing on a motion for the dismissal on jurisdictional grounds. No attorney for Girardi attended the hearing, and the judge ordered the motion stricken, and said he would entertain a motion from Morante’s attorneys for a default judgement that could cost Girardi up to $35 million.

With so much on the line for a client he considered a close friend, why would Jim Wilkes skip such an important court date? It depends on who you ask.

If you ask Wilkes himself, he blames his staff. More than three weeks after missing the hearing, his team filed a revised motion to dismiss Morante’s lawsuit. In it, Wilkes said he “wishes to sincerely apologize and express embarrassment for his failure to attend” the March 20 hearing. He asked the court to consider his no show “excusable negligence.”

In a declaration attached to the May 14 motion, Wilkes claimed the hearing didn’t make it onto his calendar due to “secretarial error.” He said his office suffered a significant turnover of staff in March, including the loss of the staff member who “calendered” his hearings. The declaration stated that the “office flux” resulted in the “calendaring error” that left the defense table empty on March 20.

There may have been another factor at issue. The truth is, for the three days immediately preceding the March 20^th hearing, Jim Wilkes could not legally practice law in the State of Florida.  The Florida Bar is responsible for preventing the unlicensed practice of law. In a letter dated May 21, the Bar reports that Wilkes “was ineligible to practice law from 3/17/2025 to 3/19/2025 due to a Continuing Legal Education delinquency.” The Bar did point out that Wilkes was eligible to practice law on March 20, the date of the hearing, although it is not clear when the Bar made Wilkes aware of his reinstatement.

It is worth noting that the responsibility for keeping a law license in good standing by completing Continuing Education requirements is the sole responsibility of the licensed attorney. Those requirements were evidently satisfied sometime between the period of ineligibility ending on March 19 and the restoration of eligibility effective on March 20.

As Wilkes asked the court to consider his failure to appear an “excusable negligence,” he might have believed Judge Trawick would, in fact, excuse it with an explanation of the “secretarial error” caused by the departed staff member who typically “calendered” Wilkes’ scheduled court appearances. Attorneys for Marco Morante have requested the defense team provide a declaration under oath from the secretary who allegedly failed to “calendar” the March 20 hearing. As of this writing, no declaration has been provided to the court.

On May 20, attorneys for Morante filed a motion for a default judgement against Erika Girardi and two of her assistants. The filing argues that Girardi and her defense team have no operative defensive pleading or motion in the court docket. The court’s latest ruling, filed the day after Wilkes failed to appear, struck Girardi’s motion to dismiss the case on a jurisdictional argument. The defense has only filed a revised motion to dismiss which contained Wilkes’ plea for leniency in the wake of his failure to appear for the March 20 hearing. A default judgement against Girardi could cost her between $12 million and $35 million.

In might also cost Wilkes himself. As Exhibit A-List has reported, Wilkes has acknowledged providing, in his words, “a couple of million” dollars to Girardi since she filed for divorce and separated from her husband Tom in 2020. Tom Girardi was convicted of wire fraud in a Los Angeles federal court last year. A press release from the United States Attorney’s office that prosecuted the case named Erika as a beneficiary of her husband’s crimes. The release said Girardi “diverted tens of millions of dollars from his law firm’s operating account to pay illegitimate expenses, including more than $25 million to pay the expenses of EJ Global, a company formed by his wife related to her entertainment career, as well as spent millions of dollars of Girardi Keese funds on private jet travel, jewelry, luxury cars, and exclusive golf and social clubs.” 

In 2020 and 2021, as Wilkes was providing financial support of “a couple of million” to his friend/client Erika Girardi, his law firm, The Wilkes Firm, P.A., applied for and received two Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans from the federal government( View documents Here and Here.) The loans totaled more than $4 million, and were based on applications that reported his firm employed at least 140 people. A sworn affidavit from a private investigator reports two people employed by the Wilkes Firm at the time said the firm only had 100 employees when it applied for the loans.

Both loans were forgiven.

As of this writing, Wilkes has not been accused of any wrongdoing related to the loans his firm received, so he hasn’t been asked to appear in court to answer any questions about the issue.

Maybe Woody Allen was wrong.