by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
At first glance, attorney and reporter seem like two professions as different as the planets Saturn and Mercury. However, after closer inspection the two professions actually have a lot in common. Both revolve around the art of asking questions and getting answers. Both seek the truth, albeit for different reasons most of the time. Both require knowledge of subject matter.
All of this helps to explain how Ed Birk went from being an Associated Press reporter to an attorney with Marks Gray.
Birk graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1983 where he was a freelance writer for the AP. After graduation, Birk caught on full-time with the AP where he began a six-year career with stints in Boston, Miami and Tallahassee.
“I covered the legislature while I was in Tallahassee and was fascinated by it,” said Birk, who was looking for a new career at the time. “I needed a new challenge and was offered a management job with the State of Florida in the Department of Highway Safety. I spent three years there before entering law school at Florida State.”
Birk said he could have gone to other schools for law school, but chose to stay in Tallahassee for several reasons.
“The legislature was there as were the courts,” he explained. “There were also intern and employment opportunities.”
After law school, Birk moved to Pensacola where he started a two-year clerkship with a federal judge. It was during this clerkship that Birk began to see where his previous career and current career could easily meld. Six years of interviewing people about a variety of subjects had, in a sense, prepared Birk well for practicing law, especially criminal defense law.
“In the law clerk position, being a former reporter was a good skill to have. I was working for the court and you had to evaluate things neutrally,” said Birk, adding that the transition from reporter to attorney may have been tougher without the time with the State and clerkship. He said the hardest adjustment as an attorney was forcing himself to take a distinct side in every case. “It took a concentrated effort to focus on being an advocate for one side.”
Today, Birk says he enjoys both his decision to go to law school and move to Jacksonville. He’s married with a seven-year-old and lives in Ponte Vedra. He said he still relies on some of his reporter instincts, not so much in court, but while he’s researching cases and during depositions and inquiries.
“Knowing where to look for information, how to get around the courts, where records are kept — those kinds of things are helpful,” said Birk of the reporter skills he still employs. “Having experience asking difficult questions to people who may not want to be asked also helps.
“The biggest challenge is, as a reporter you are supposed to take a neutral position and look at both sides with an objective viewpoint. As an attorney, you have to be an advocate. You get the facts, but you have to advocate and see only that position.”
Interestingly, Birk still blurs the two professions. One of his clients is TV-4, which employs Birk to look over scripts for news stories and other business issues like contracts.
“I look over some of their scripts before they air to help them avoid any defamation,” said Birk.