by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
Long work weeks are nothing new for Hank Coxe. But the prominent criminal defense attorney will stretch his agenda even further when he steps into one of the Florida Bar’s top offices.
Coxe will be sworn in Friday as the Bar’s president-elect at the organization’s annual convention at the Orlando World Center Marriott. Coxe’s high-profile cases sometimes demand hundred-hour work weeks on behalf of a single client. Now he’s getting ready to represent the Bar’s near 76,000 members.
“I hear from 20 lawyers a day already,” said Coxe following last week’s Jacksonville Bar Association meeting. “Every time I answer my phone or check my e-mail, there’s a new list of issues brought to my attention.”
Don’t be fooled by the hyphenated title, said Coxe. There’s no grace period for the president-elect. The office holder is expected to work hand-in-hand with the Bar’s president and Board of Governors to develop and execute policy and keep track of a $30 million budget. Coxe will take over the office from current President-elect Alan Bookman, who will replace Kelly Overstreet Johnson as president. Coxe will be sworn in as president in June 2006.
“It’s really a two-year process,” he said. “Being president-elect occupies just as much energy and time. I’ll have good support from my firm and from a very capable Board of Governors. But it will still probably mean longer days. Longer nights and weekends, too, I suppose.”
Coxe is no stranger to overtime hours. Since graduating from Washington & Lee’s law school in 1972, Coxe led the Fourth Circuit’s State Attorney’s Office’s felony and special prosecution division. After running his own firm from 1981 to 1996, Coxe joined the firm of Bedell, Dittmar, DeVault, Pillans and Coxe as a partner where he has focused on criminal defense.
The Bar’s first priority during Coxe’s two-year tenure will be to defend the state judiciary’s independence against encroachment from the legislative and executive branches.
The issue has become a rallying cry for Florida’s legal community in the wake of the state’s 2004 election. A trio of ballot initiatives aimed at medical malpractice in Florida created a nasty public relations battle between the state’s legal and medical communities. Later, Florida’s courts wrestled with the legislature and governor’s office over who possessed jurisdiction to decide the fate of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who sparked a national debate over an individual’s right to die.
Even before the Schiavo controversy, Coxe knew that he’d spend a good part of his two-year term standing up for the Bar. He told the Bar’s news service in December that “the legal profession is under attack and we have a duty to meet that attack courageously.”
For that to happen, Coxe said the legal community must rally together to ensure that Florida’s judges can make decisions independent of political and popular pressure and unaffected by the glare of the media spotlight.
That’s a tall order. But Coxe points out that he doesn’t have to pull it off alone. He has some of the most able attorneys in Florida working with him as part of the Bar’s Board of Governors.
Coxe served on the board himself since 1995 and he pointed to his replacement, Coker, Myers, Schickel, Sorenson and Green partner Jake Schickel, as an example of the board’s reservoir of talent. Schickel will take over the seat vacated by Coxe when he’s sworn in at the convention. Schickel joins Grier Wells as the Fourth Judicial Circuit’s representatives.
“Jake and I started together as naive, floundering young prosecutors more years ago than either he or I would like to admit. But as inartful as we both were in this profession, he was as committed to its best interests then as he is now. The lawyers from this circuit will significantly benefit from his presence on the Board,” said Coxe.
Both Schickel and Coxe have extensive experience advocating for local lawyers through their involvement with the Jacksonville Bar Association. Coxe is a former JBA president. But Coxe said leading the state Bar will be a much more challenging job.
“Involvement in a local bar is voluntary, in the Florida Bar membership is mandatory. The organization is different, the mission is different, the structure of the rules are different,” said Coxe.
The most glaring difference is the state Bar’s obligation to watch over its members’ conduct and apply discipline when necessary. It’s a job Coxe should be prepared for. As a member of the Board of Governors, Coxe chaired a commission charged with streamlining the Bar’s disciplinary process.
Still, keeping watch over 75,000 attorneys spread over 20 judicial districts could be a full-time job in itself. So why was Coxe interested in taking on the extra responsibilities of leading the Florida Bar?
“With my work on the Board of Governors, I had been so close to the process for so many years,” he said. “I looked at the many talented individuals I’d be working with, and I just thought I could do the job well.”