One in a series on local judges.
by Sean McManus
Staff Writer
If it was a movie, it might be called “The Accidental Judge.” The protagonist would be played by Jerry Funk, a bankruptcy judge who loves his job, but didn’t even think he wanted to be a lawyer. The protagonist’s mentor would be played by the gentile and grandfatherly George Proctor, a small town lawyer turned judge who works hard and tries to help people who fall on hard times.
The story goes like this. Funk was born in Dalton, Ga., the carpet capital of the world. He attended the University of Georgia, and at the prompting of his Polish-immigrant father, majored in business.
But his father, who worked in the carpet factory, said, “You have to get into some kind of profession.” So Funk, who wasn’t any good at science (or business for that matter), went to law school.
Cumberland Law School in Birmingham, Ala., was nice for Funk, who certainly didn’t mind deferring the Vietnam War a little while longer by staying in school. And although Funk never wanted to be a lawyer (mostly because he never even met one except for his professors), he learned a little bit about torts, civil procedure and the First Amendment.
His grades, though, were pretty good. He didn’t want to disappoint his father, after all. And besides, law school costs too much money to only fool around.
A year after school started, Funk joined the Army Reserves. He spent some time in Texas and Arizona at military bases there.
When that’s over, Funk thinks, “Maybe I just won’t go back.” But then he thinks, “People might think I flunked out.” So Funk goes back to law school. Two years later, he graduated.
“I didn’t give myself much of a chance on passing the bar,” said Funk, in his office in the U.S. Courthouse. “My wife and I were going to move to South Florida but we stopped at her parents’ house in Jacksonville on the way down and we never left.”
His wife’s parents let them live in a second house they owned while Funk took the bar exam and waited for his score. The way Funk figured it, it was a one-shot deal. If he passed, then he’d become a lawyer. If not, then no way.
In the meantime, Funk, who said he’s been contributing to Social Security since he was 13, had to get some kind of a job.
“I’ve done everything from lay carpet to tend bar,” said Funk. “So I went out and looked for a job.”
But everywhere Funk applied, they told him he was over-qualified. But he did manage to land a job hanging dry wall at what was to become the Regency Square Mall.
One day, Funk ran into an old buddy from law school who was a practicing attorney in Jacksonville. He told Funk they were looking for somebody to do some office work at the law firm of Coleman Madsen. Madsen was a former U.S. Attorney and at one time a bankrupt eferee. Funk walked in with his resume.
“So they hired me to draft motions, sit-in during hearings, write letters and do some research,” said Funk. “One day, one of the lawyers who worked for Madsen called the bar to see if the results were out. I passed.”
To make a long story short, the lawyer (the only other attorney in the office besides Madsen) decided to move to Tallahassee. And Madsen, who handled much of the work for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was often called to Salt Lake City. In other words, there was Funk, left to run the firm.
“I got knocked around a lot because I had no idea what I was doing,” said Funk. “The secretaries told me what to do. I’d file a complaint and it would get dismissed.”
Funk, who at this point was 25, began to gain a reputation as a punk who was going up against the big hitters.
“It was trial by fire,” he said. “But the weird thing is that I started getting pretty good at it. And then I started liking it.”
Funk took anything that came in the door, from adoptions to zoning.
“But never bankruptcy,” said Funk, who thought bankruptcy was “the most boring thing in the world.”
One day a workers compensation case came in the door and Funk had no idea what to do. But a secretary there, who used to work for Proctor, told Funk to go ask him how to do it.”
“He told me exactly what to do,” said Funk, “and exactly how to argue it. I went to trial and I lost, but it wasn’t his fault.”
Soon after, Funk started working for local attorney Harold Haimowitz. And Proctor became a bankruptcy judge.
Proctor asked Funk, his protege, to serve as a trustee in bankruptcy cases. Trustees are the people the court appoints to serve as the regulators of either the liquidation of assets and payment to creditors or to supervise the reorganization, depending on whether it’s Chapter 7 or Chapter 13.
Meanwhile, Funk went to work with attorney Mark Green. The firm of Funk & Green would handle personal injury, divorce and almost anything.
“Every kind of law I would practice would get legislated away from me,” said Funk. “If I tried personal injury, they would pass laws about no fault personal injury. If I would try divorce, they would pass a no fault divorce law. I should have practiced tax law.”
Funk stayed with Funk & Green for 17 years.
“I think I really love the law because I didn’t have any preconceived notions about it,” said Funk. “If it was horrible, I couldn’t tell.”
Proctor talked Funk into applying to the bankruptcy court in 1992. A year later, he was appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Funk said most of the time bankruptcy law isn’t just bankruptcy law. It’s an amalgamation of all the kinds of law that got people there in the first place — like labor law and personal injury.
“Most of the people who have to file for bankruptcy are embarrassed and humiliated by the process,” he said. “It’s admission that you played the game and you lost.”
Funk knows the kind of toll it takes on people and he tries to assuage the pain.
“I try to treat people with respect through this tough time,” said Funk, taking a chapter from Proctor’s book.
That’s not to say he doesn’t see some behavior that raises eyebrows.
“I was remarking to another judge once that there was a $100,000 charge on a platinum American Express card,” Funk said. “And he said he had recently seen $200,000.”
Funk is a jogger and a prostate cancer survivor. He reads voraciously and plays golf. His met his wife, Maxine, at the University of Georgia. His daughter, Amy, works for Catholic Charities. Funk, who is 56, plans on staying right where he is.
“I turned out to love it,” he said. “And I just fell into it.”