Here Come De New Judge

My friend Joel comes from a family of lawyers: his uncle is a lawyer, as are his mother and father. His sister Dawn was a long time prosecutor. Joel, who knows MANY folks in Miami, having been born and raised here, spoke to his contacts and helped his sister get proper consideration for a County Court seat. Yesterday was her investiture...

I put on a tie for the first time in weeks, and headed over to the courthouse with Paul and Stuart. There's a historic courtroom there, which the Cuban lawyer association raised money to have restored. It's beautiful --ornate wood carvings and features --the very picture of the type of space where Atticus Finch would ply his profession.

We packed in, with a bunch of judges and mostly prosecutors and criminal defense lawyers, and watched the ceremony. Joel and Dawn's father is a legendary lawyer in town. He taught his now more famous protege, Roy Black, the business. Dawn grew up in the courthouse, but still wanted to be an art historian. But Jack, her father, convinced her to go into the family business, and she distinguished herself as a fair but tough prosecutor of major felonies. Jack spoke, with his amazing oratorical skills, of the stages of his daughter's life, and the clothing she wore, from footed pjs, to high school dress, to college girl, to new lawyer, and finally, when he sneaked into her courtroom last month, the black robe of a judge.

Joel and his mother Sharon got to place the robe on Dawn, after the former Chief Judge, Gerry Wetherington, administered the oath of office.

Paul, Stuart, and I used to know ALL the judges. Now we knew maybe half of them. A young Cuban girl came up to me and said hello --she had met me through a mutual friend Todd, formerly a Public Defender, and now a civil litigator, and said hello. "My name's Lourdes," she said. I asked her what she did. "I'm a County Court Judge." I thought she was going to tell me she was a new paralegal for some other attorney. I felt old...

Afterwards, Paul, Stuart, and I retired to Stu's favorite lunch place: the old Burdines cafeteria. It's in the original Burdines, now a Macy's like the rest of them, but with the same buffet I remember from my first years of practice.

We talked of legal days gone by. I'm 50, Stuart's 51, and Paul's about to turn 61, and somehow the 80s don't seem 30 years ago...

Last night, the celebration continued with a cocktail party in Wynwood, at a club called Caffeina. I avoided being carjacked as I drove through Overtown, to 23rd Street, and parked outside.

I met Joel's mother Sharon, who was my classmate at UM Law, but we'd never met. She went back to law school after her divorce from Jack, and has practiced public interest type stuff since, while raising Joel and Dawn. She's a lovely lady, and we promised to meet again at our 25th reunion party, in a few months. It was great to see her beaming: "My daugher the Judge!" I can't imagine it gets much better for a parent...

And so it was a throughly uplifting day. To see a friend's family soar, well, I don't know what's better.

Joel is a rising star in the criminal defense world. He represents some serious bad guys --South American drug dealers and money launderers...I always joke with him that, as long as he stays AK 47 bullet free, he'll be richer than any of us.

And now his sister is a judge -- as respected a position as a lawyer can have. May Dawn serve well. I know she will.