Mr. Tharpe holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science with a minor in business and a Juris Doctor degree from Texas Southern University in Houston Texas. After graduating from Law School in 1990, Mr. Tharpe was accepted at the University of Miami Master of Taxation Program, (LLM) and attended the program for one semester before being hired as an attorney by the prestigious Law Firm of Nicholas, Valle, Craig and Wicks specializing in Insurance Defense and Admiralty law. After defending insurance companies (Penske, Chrysler, and Allstate) in personal injury and admiralty cases for four years, Mr. Tharpe was hired by McCrary and Moseley. There Mr. Tharpe practiced defense, personal injury, probate, wills and trust, workers compensation, corporate law, administrative law and civil litigation cases. After fine tuning his trade, Mr. Tharpe opened his private practice in 1996, specializing primarily in civil litigation, corporate organization, family law, administrative law and personal injury cases. Mr. Tharpe has considerable experience in Compliance as he was recruited by the Miami Dade County School District as the Compliance Officer for the Charter School Division from 2000 to 2005. Mr. Tharpe resumed private law practice since 2005. Mr. Tharpe is a member in good standing of the Florida Bar Association.