By Fred Seely
Editorial Director
Bill Scheu again has his name on the Lawyer of the Year plaque and he let his fellow Jacksonville Bar Association members immediately know that their names should be there, too.
Scheu received the honor, given annually by the Daily Record, at last week’s JBA Law Day luncheon at the Hyatt. He was recognized for community service - particularly his work as the interim Supervisor of Elections - and he told his peers “to use your gifts. God gave you gifts that you may not know you have, and you won’t know until you get out and help others.”
Later, Scheu worried that his profession was getting in the way of public service.
“The business has changed,” he said, “to the unhealthy point where the bottom line means more than the work you’re supposed to be doing. We’ve gone too far toward being a business rather than being a profession. We’ve gone over the line.”
Lawyers, he said, are well suited for public service.
“We’re trained to deal with situations, we’re trained to help people and we’re trained to analyze situations,” he said. “We know how government works, certainly more than almost any other profession.
“We have the tools and I think it’s incumbent on all of us to get out and use them. We are trained as advocates and that should be done in civic works as well as in our business.”
Scheu’s civic works stretch back to 1970 when he came out of the University of Florida School of Law and joined the Ulmer Murchison firm. He has served on numerous civic boards and commissions, and was named Lawyer of the Year in 1992.
He was appointed by Gov. Jeb Bush as the interim elections chief when John Stafford retired due to illness in 2003. Scheu guided that office until last month when newly-elected Jerry Holland took over.
During the JBA luncheon, the speaker, former Florida Supreme Court Justice Joseph W. Hatchett bemoaned the challenges to the judiciary by politicians.
“Judge Hatchett pointed out that the judges aren’t being defended,” said Scheu. “He asked attorneys to stand up and be counted, and that’s what we need to be doing for our profession.
“We have a problem in that the public really doesn’t understand attorneys. They don’t teach Civics any more in schools and our image may not be what it really is. That may be a deterrent for people to reach out to us, to encourage us to join them in civic work.”
At the close of his acceptance speech, he gave the JBA gathering a simple set of guidelines, quoting Micah 6:8:
“Like the Old Testament prophet said,
“What doth the Lord require of three but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”