During her first case, Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer went head-to-head with City Commissioner Michael Gongora over what Dermer called an end-run around an ethics ordinance prohibiting certain lobbying appearances. Gongora argued that since he was only an “associate” at the law firm Becker & Poliakoff, the firm’s lawyers could lobby city boards without violating the law, which Dermer was instrumental in crafting.

Rookie Abdo-Gomez spoke up and said Gongora was “splitting hairs based on words. I don’t care what you call him. The relationship is still there, and it appears inappropriate.”

And so Gongora was sent packing and Abdo-Gomez established a presence as one tough cookie.

Abdo-Gomez, a bankruptcy lawyer who opened her own practice in 1988, successfully defended the rights of clients filing for bankruptcy to keep their pensions, even after the state ignored Florida laws protecting pension plans from creditors.

Then, in 1992, Abdo-Gomez set the bar higher still when national accounting firm Laventhol & Horwath, faced with 150 malpractice suits, filed for Chapter 11. Abdo-Gomez represented one of its Miami accountants, setting off nationwide speculation that its 629 partners would, well, follow suit.

In addition to her private practice, Abdo-Gomez now teaches debtor-creditor rights, bankruptcy and legal accounting at St. Thomas University School of Law. She graduated from the University of Miami and went on to the University of Florida, earning her J.D. and LL.M. In 1986, she went to work as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the IRS Office of Chief Counsel in Miami, where she worked on drug trafficking and money-laundering cases.

Most recently, the dean of St. Thomas University hand-selected Abdo-Gomez to fill a vacant position on the ethics commission reserved for St. Thomas and University of Miami professors or adjuncts.

“I feel the work is important because I think that it will, in the long run, provide the public some assurance that public officials will have to answer for the actions they undertake while carrying out their civic duties,” she said.

“The real power woman is the one who, in today’s complicated and stressful world, almost single-handedly struggles daily and not only keeps it all together, but succeeds. Single mothers who work, sometimes more than one job, to make ends meet; raise their children to be responsible, mature adults; and maintain their homes and still keep their sanity. That's the real ‘power woman.’ Under that definition, then I guess I am one.”