General Counsel Jason Gabriel remembers two distinct, yet very different, feelings he had in May 2014.
It was a time the city was in search of its next head attorney to lead the team of more than 30 lawyers. He was being considered for the job.
“I was pleased,” he recently said with a smile, “and mortified.”
Pleased because it’s a noble position he always has respected.
Mortified because he knew the pressures and responsibilities the job carries. He’d seen it with longtime friend and colleague Cindy Laquidara, who announced she was returning to the private sector that April.
The office represents 32 elected officials and every aspect of Jacksonville’s consolidated government. It’s a lofty job. The idea made him pause and think.
Gabriel’s always been an analytical and philosophical thinker, dating back to his youth. It’s why he entered law through a philosophy background and long considered teaching the subject in college for a living.
Ultimately, he thought it’d be “a great thing to take on.”
A tough adjustment, maybe, but a challenge if he were lucky enough to be named.
As he’s found out, it came surprisingly natural.
Many places to call home
Gabriel was born in Santa Clara, Calif., the son of Jack and Rania, Iraqi immigrants who moved to the U.S. in the 1970s.
Gabriel didn’t grow up there, though. He grew up in a lot of places, actually.
Not even 3 years old, Gabriel and his family moved to Jacksonville to be closer to other members of the family. Off Southside’s Bowden Road was home for several years until his father, a civil engineer, took a contract with RS&H.
Not in Jacksonville. Not in the Southeast. Not even in the U.S.
The offer was in Kuwait in the mid-1980s, a time when the country was building plenty of bridges, roads, highways and other infrastructure.
Gabriel said moving from the greenness of Jacksonville to the desert of the Middle East was a “complete culture shock for a third-grader.”
However, the move came with perks — the family was able to travel throughout most of Europe on vacations, Gabriel’s favorite of which was the Mediterranean.
After the contract ended in 1987, Gabriel’s father secured another one. This one in Izmir, Turkey, for several years, where Gabriel started high school at a U.S. Department of Defense school.
However, that contract ended at the outset of the Persian Gulf War at the start of what turned into a recessionary period.
The family returned to the U.S. and a familiar place.
“Jacksonville was always sort of our hub,” said Gabriel. “As much as we traveled the world, it always felt like home … it had everything we wanted and was a natural fit.”
His father soon had a job at the Jacksonville Transportation Authority leading highway design and Gabriel had settled in after five high schools, many moves and much thought about what he wanted to do as a career.
An early familiar face
Initially, Gabriel said he wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become an engineer.
He was good at math and science, but found himself becoming more analytical and philosophical about subjects.
After completing his associate’s degree at the University of North Florida, he transferred to the University of Florida to start his work to become an engineer.
But, after his first introduction to engineering course, he knew it wasn’t for him.
“I wanted to poke my eyes out,” he said, laughing.
Outside of the initial intrigue he found it, well, dry. He wanted something more so he made the turn to philosophy.
Gabriel wanted to either earn his doctorate and teach the subject or go into law, an idea that “always was sort of in the back of my head.” Law as an abstract thought uses philosophy as a base and is steeped in logic.
It was a fit. During undergrad, he clerked at the Jacksonville office of what is now Edwards & Cohen. In the late 1990s, it was Laquidara, Edwards & Cohen.
Laquidara brought Gabriel aboard as a “boy wonder” as he called it — he was responsible for everything from picking up a New York Times and a Big Gulp to sifting through boxes of files to try and analyze.
The general counsel at the time, Rick Mullaney, hired Laquidara while Gabriel finished school. He was hired at the private firm in March 2002, months after graduating.
His focus was land use and zoning matters, an area that took him across the state for work. However, he also frequently found himself at City Hall.
Land use, he said, is a great background for local government — it involves not only politics but engages the community.
When the real estate market nosedived starting in 2008, Gabriel found himself looking more at the city as a possible spot. He always considered himself a private-practice kind of guy, but the people and the possibilities with government intrigued him.
He was Mullaney’s last hire in 2010, before the former general counsel stepped down to run for mayor.
Gabriel jokes with him about that in the “saving the best for last” vein. Laquidara, his one-time (albeit short-time) boss, was appointed to head the position.
From there, Gabriel started to branch out past just land use issues.
Excelling in the public sector
Working for the general counsel’s office lends itself to variety, he said.
Gabriel did some labor and employment briefs, worked with the Ethics Office during a time when travel issues arose and took on the challenge of being involved with reapportionment.
The once-a-decade practice of tweaking City Council districts was some of the rawest politics Gabriel said he’s been a part of and it opened his eyes to the geography of the city.
After a few years of handling different areas, Gabriel decided to pursue becoming Florida Bar-certified in the area of city, county and local government law.
The cumbersome exam tested all areas of local government and Gabriel passed in 2012, becoming one of six in the city to hold the distinction, he said.
In April 2014, Laquidara announced she was stepping away from the job.
Gabriel said he didn’t have a clue — few did — but after four years in the role he wasn’t shocked.
“I was hoping she’d stay longer,” he said. “I really value her.”
Gabriel was named by former Mayor Alvin Brown as a fill-in of sorts less than a month after the announcement.
Brown had a year left on his first term and there was movement to tweak how the city’s general counsel was to be selected, which came after criticism over how Laquidara was appointed.
Instead of a mayor having the option to simply reappoint, the new process called for an oversight and selection committee comprising a collection of lawyers with varied backgrounds.
Mayor Lenny Curry named Gabriel acting general counsel in June but established the committee to determine who would run the office long term.
Although the group reached out to several candidates, only two participated in the application process. Gabriel was one of them.
In the year he was acting general counsel, Gabriel helped oversee what ultimately became the start of pension reform and two pension-related legal cases that were part of the mix.
How he handled those issues and his loyalty to the principles of consolidated government were big factors in naming him to the position long-term, said John Delaney at the time. The former mayor and general counsel chaired the search committee.
Gabriel’s interim tag was pulled in late August.
The mortification he once felt isn’t there anymore.
Instead, he’s surprised with how natural the shift has felt. Taking on the challenge wasn’t that tough of an adjustment, he said, but the challenges are ever-present.
They just require preparation, communication and the right train of thought, a characteristic for which he’s always strived.
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