One is a series on local judges.
by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
Gregg McCaulie says that if he hadn’t received a pretty good score on the LSAT, he’d probably be living as a surfer in Hawaii.
“It was just one of those trips you take when you’re young,” said McCaulie, referring to the two months he spent on the Big Island with a friend after his junior year at the University of South Florida. “You just get off the plane with a tent, a surfboard and a ticket home. You just stay until your money runs out.”
McCaulie is a beach guy. He grew up in Ortega but moved to Atlantic Beach after receiving his first paycheck as an attorney. It seems that McCaulie has always been trying to get a little more tropical.
“I did a summer exchange program in Mexico during law school,” he said. “It was like a vacation except I got credit. When we weren’t learning international law, we took a lot of side trips.”
As for becoming a lawyer, that dates to his childhood.
“My parent’s house was right next door to Mark Hulsey,” said McCaulie. “He was president of The Florida Bar and he was a mentor for me. He’s the reason I wanted to be a lawyer.”
McCaulie was an intern under Ed Austin at the State Attorney’s Office while he was in law school at the University of Florida. After graduating in 1974, he went to work for the Public Defender’s Office.
And he credits the experience with teaching him how to be a lawyer and how to operate in the courtroom.
“You think when you graduate from law school that you’ve got some idea about how to practice law,” McCaulie said. “Wrong.”
After three and a half years, McCaulie entered private practice, joining local attorneys Rodney Margol and Glenn Allen, along with now Circuit Court Judge Peter Fryefield.
“I went to law school with all those guys and all of us would study really hard except Fryefield. He would just lounge around the pool playing his guitar. But he got the same grades as the rest of us.”
Allen, Margol, Fryefield & McCaulie handled everything from criminal to family law, business, personal injury and general trial work.
About four years later, McCaulie went to work with Carleton Maddox and Jeff Peterson. He traveled the state, practicing criminal and family law and federal criminal defense work.
He later ventured out on his own, but shared space (and cases) with attorneys Harry Mahon and Jim Farley. He was working business law cases with clients such as GMAC and Ford Motor Credit, but he also handled bankruptcy cases.
“I also was doing federal criminal work,” McCaulie said. “Federal work is different from state work because the stakes are higher and there’s not really any room for error.”
In 1992, McCaulie went to work for Hand, Drew, Mercier, & Showalter when Hugh Carithers left for the
Circuit Court bench.
“I became the family law guy for that firm,” said McCaulie.
Four years later he was appointed to the Circuit Court bench.
“I actually applied in 1986,” said McCaulie. “But I needed more experience. I’ve always wanted to be a judge.”
McCaulie said the thrill of the courtroom is still the most appealing part about being a judge.
“I like being the one who is involved in the decision-making,” McCaulie. “And I like helping this community.”
McCaulie’s first foray into politics (except for voting) actually came when he ran for County Court in 1994. “That was a real learning experience,” said McCaulie. “I met a lot of people in Jacksonville and I saw parts of town that I had never
seen before.”
McCaulie ran against Eleni Derke, who won the election, and Jerilyn O’Hara, saying it was a tough race.
In 1996, he was appointed by then-Gov. Lawton Chiles and has since served in the family, civil and criminal court divisions. The rotation, McCaulie admits, “keeps you from getting stale.”
The longtime lawyer said that while he enjoyed trial law, there were so many stressful parts of the job.
“The never-ending client demands are constantly requiring so much of you,” he said. “There’s another lawyer standing next to you that really wants to defeat you.”
For McCaulie, being a judge captured his favorite parts of trial work — being in the courtroom, while eliminating the worst parts — the long hours and the stress.
“There’s still plenty of stress in this job,” he said. “But it’s a different kind of stress. You have tough decisions to make and you have to juggle lots of cases. But there’s more of a civic force driving you.”
Sometimes judges make decisions about whether parents get to keep their own children and they regulate people’s freedom. It’s heady stuff. And no one is more cognizant of that than McCaulie.
“I think it’s really important to remember that victims have rights,” he said. “Often, there’s not enough time to spend on cases as we’d like, but we do the best we can.”
To unwind, McCaulie likes whitewater kayaking, canoeing and rafting. He takes regular trips to the Natahala River in North Carolina and Ocoee River on the Tennessee border. He’s been down the Gauley in West Virginia. He also skis and plays golf.
“I’m also very active in the Jacksonville Center for Independent Living,” said McCaulie, referring to the 25-year-old organization that provides support services like medical equipment for the disabled. McCaulie serves on its advisory board.
McCaulie is also board chair for Teen Court, the program where students who are brought up on misdemeanor charges at school appear before a jury of their peers instead of going to court.
“This is a chance for kids to avoid a permanent scar on their record,” said McCaulie. “It’s an extremely positive program that usually involves a lot of community service. And these students are learning first how the legal system works, it really lets them think about punishment. And as a result, the recidivism rate is very low.”