by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Everything looks different from 1,500 feet in the air. Trains stretching a quarter mile look like toys, 40-story buildings look like models and 80-mile-per-hour traffic seems to snake slowly down I-95. Even the law takes on a different perception. Sometimes things happen that only a pilot sees.
That’s why the aviation practice of Spohrer, Wilner, Maxwell and Matthews attorney Ed Booth Jr. benefits as much from his 2,500 hours in the cockpit as from his three years at Florida State’s law school. Booth tallied most of those hours in his own plane, a 1968 Piper Arrow, and said the lessons he’s learned in the air have often had a direct impact on his litigation.
That first-hand experience played a determinative role in a suit last year against the Federal Aviation Administration on behalf of the family of Donald Weidner, a pilot who crashed after receiving incorrect weather information from the tower at Jacksonville International Airport.
A legal team including Booth and partner Woody Wilner, an instrument-rated pilot with 3,000 hours of flight time, used weather instruments inside Weidner’s plane that had been set incorrectly to help convince a jury that the pilot had received bad information. It was a detail only a pilot would have caught said Booth.
“It never hurts for a firm to have first-hand experience in areas of practice,” he said. “I know what the pilot’s mindset is up there. I know what a pilot expects to happen.”
Spohrer Wilner takes seriously its commitment to practical experience. Wilner said the firm looks for attorneys with applicable experience when hiring and said associates and partners are encouraged to add to that experience whenever possible.
Out of 40 attorneys statewide certified by the Florida Bar board as specialists in aviation law, five work at Spohrer Wilner’s West Adams Street office. The firm even has a legal secretary certified in the area.
“What’s unique about Spohrer Wilner is the volume of expertise in the area,” said Booth. “We have seven pilots and the largest number of attorneys with board certification in the state.”
Florida’s Bar may not even have a certification for aviation law without Booth. He pushed for the designation in the mid-1990s and wrote the legislation that was eventually passed by the state Supreme Court instituting the certification program.
Booth’s affair with the air stretches further back to his days as a cash-strapped college student at Emory University. He grew up on Jacksonville’s Westside under the approach to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, watching the jets land and wondering what it would be like to sit in the cockpit. Finally, he decided to find out.
“I plunked my life savings on the counter of the airport and told them I wanted to learn to fly,” said Booth. “Three months later, I had my ticket.”
Owning a plane can be a costly hobby. Owners spend thousands of dollars each year on fuel, maintenance and hanger fees. But the payoff comes in convenience. Booth’s practice takes him all over the state and up the east coast. By taking his own plane, he skips the flight delays and security checkpoint lines associated with commercial flight.
Besides, flying his own plane gives Booth a chance to engage in another hobby, his aerial photography. On an overcast morning last week, Booth flew low to stay beneath a layer of gray clouds.
As he took off from JIA, Jacksonville’s skyline slowly came into shape on the horizon. The 20-minute drive to downtown takes about five minutes when flying at 150 miles per hour.
Booth pointed out all the downtown landmarks before banking hard left to zero in on his real target. He pointed his camera out a three-inch slit in his window and began snapping pictures of the still vacant construction site set aside for construction of the proposed new Duval County Courthouse.
“Maybe we could put an airport there,” said Booth tongue planted firmly into cheek. “I bet I could land there right now without putting a scratch on the plane.”
Trying cases that often stem from air disasters has turned Booth into a safer pilot. He learns from every mistake he sees vetted inside the courtroom. The most important lesson he’s learned? Get the plane down safely.
“When it comes to landings, I’ve got one rule,” he said shortly after he settled his plane back onto JIA’s runway. “Make sure you have as many landings as you do takeoffs.”