by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
The heat must have gotten pretty intense during Tyrie A. Boyer’s baptism by fire.
On a Wednesday he graduated from law school at the University of Florida.
On Thursday he and his classmates were sworn in as attorneys.There was no bar exam to take.
On Friday he came to Jacksonville to report for his new job with Crawford & May.
On Monday the freshly minted lawyer was in the Civil Court of Record, trying his first case.
“Judge Burton Barrs was the judge,” Boyer recalled. “He was a very straitlaced, no-foolishness judge. A very good judge and a very nice fellow. He just didn’t put up with a lot of foolishness.
“I think he felt sorry for me, and I think the jury felt sorry for me because I was obviously lost.
“I won.”
The year was 1954. Boyer and classmate Lawrence Fay, a future circuit court judge, had been the only two UF graduates called in for interviews at Crawford & May.
“That job was the highest one offered to anybody in the class,” said Boyer. “It was for $250 a month.”
Boyer was one of 66 attorneys honored during The Florida Bar’s annual meeting in Boca Raton for 50 years of practicing law. He was joined by three others from the Jacksonville area — Judge June C. Blackburn, Neil C. Taylor and Arthur W. Milam of Ponte Vedra Beach.
Despite those opening-day jitters, Boyer said it was probably a good thing he hit the ground running. Even if he hit it so fast that his feet nearly spun out from under him.
“I owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. May and Mr. Crawford, particularly Mr. May,” he said. “Mr. May was a very tough taskmaster. And I thank him for it.
“I used to say that not only was he my mentor; he was my tormentor. He did not tolerate any deviation from perfection.
“It was frustrating at the time, but it’s been a great help to me in my career, in my life.”
Boyer was raised on a 67-acre farm in Levy County. Most of the acreage was given over to corn and peanuts, with three or four acres set aside for cucumbers and okra for cash crops, “though there wasn’t a lot of cash.”
The family’s primary cash crop was hogs.
He hadn’t given much thought to education after high school. The family moved to Jacksonville just before World War II, and Boyer graduated from Lee High School. He went to classes in the morning and worked as an automobile mechanic at Duval Motor Co. in the afternoons and evenings.
After he was discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1945, Boyer went back to his old job at Duval Motor. He eventually gave in, however, to entreaties by his wife, Betty, that he go to law school.
“I had the G.I. Bill, and, if you made an application, they had to let you in,” Boyer said. “But they didn’t have to keep you.
“I went to the University of Florida totally unprepared. I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was getting into.
“In retrospect, it would seem to be an insane thing to do. I had no money. My mama and daddy certainly weren’t able to afford it. And I had two children. But I also had a very patient wife, and everything worked out.”
He majored in sociology as a way to get a broader education.
“Just about anything you took would qualify toward your degree,” said Boyer. “I took some accounting, mathematics, some philosophy and astronomy.”
Six months after going to work for Crawford & May, he was made a partner. In 1960, he ran for judge of the Civil Court of Record. It was similar to today’s circuit court, except the maximum jurisdiction in civil cases was $3,000.
“All of the firms would send their young lawyers to the Civil Court of Record for training before turning them loose in circuit court,” said Boyer. “I used to say I felt more like a law professor than a judge.”
The legislature abolished the Civil Court of Record in 1963 when the judicial system was streamlined. Boyer was appointed a judge of the 4th Judicial Circuit.
At a salary of $12,000 a year, he was having difficulty meeting his financial obligations and resigned the position in 1967. He joined a firm that became Dawson, Galant, Maddox, Boyer, Sulik & Nichols.
He finished second in 1973 in a three-man race for the District Court of Appeal and was appointed to the judgeship by Gov. Reuben Askew when the winner was too sick to continue.
There he stayed until 1979, when he formed Boyer, Tanzler, Blackburn and Boyer. Joining Hans Tanzler, the former mayor, and A.B. Blackburn Jr., the husband of Judge June Blackburn, was Boyer’s eldest son, Tyrie W.
“During the crazy 1960s and 1970s, I had several friends whose sons had graduated from law school, and they literally wouldn’t even speak to one another,” said Boyer. “I was flattered that my son wanted to practice with his daddy. That was too flattering for me to turn down.”
The firm maintains a general practice, largely involving commercial real estate litigation and personal injury.
Two of the most conspicuous differences between the practice of law 50 years ago and now are the overwhelming number of specialists and the overwhelming number of laws.
When he began practicing, the Florida Statutes all fit in two books. Now there are five volumes plus an index. And the volumes are thicker than before.
“You can’t do a general practice like we did then,” said Boyer. “There’s so much more law. You can’t keep up with the changes.
“The same statute keeps getting changed over and over again. And I’m not sure all of them are improvements.”
He recently saw a cartoon that perfectly describes the changes in his profession over time.
Two men are in a law library, surrounded by books. One points to a copy of the Ten Commandments up on a wall and says, “Just think. That’s what we started with.”
“Oh, my heavens,” said Boyer. “That is so true.”