by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Now that the hard part is over, Caroline Emery can spend the next year thinking about what she will do as only the third woman president of the Jacksonville Bar Association since the organization was formed in 1897.
Emery narrowly defeated Joe Carmelengo to become president-elect under incoming president Kelly Mathis, who will take over for Alan Pickert at next month’s meeting. Emery said she was “pleasantly shocked” when the vote was announced and credits the time she spent over the past two months in the legal community for the win.
“I met with tons of Bar members and talked to them about their needs, their wants and their concerns,” said Emery, who is the law clerk for U.S. District Court Judge Harvey Schlesinger.
And, not all the talking was in English. When Emery met with the Hispanic Bar Association, she spoke to them in Spanish. Emery’s father worked for the State Department’s Foreign Service and she spent the first 14 years of her life living outside the United States,
“When I moved to the United States, I knew Spanish better than English,” said Emery, who also speaks French.
“For the next year, I will partner with Kelly Mathis and we get along great,” said Emery, a graduate of the University of Miami’s law school but a Florida Gators fan. “We will work together. I will cover Bar events when he can’t make it.”
In Pickert, she said, she and Mathis have a great example to follow.
“Alan has been terrific and he and I see eye-to-eye on just about everything,” she said, adding she intends to continue many of Pickert’s ideas with minor tweakings here and there.
One of those tweaks will be to immediately start working to change the way the Bar elections are conducted.
Right now, Bar members can only vote at the County Courthouse, at the Bar offices or at the annual meeting. Emery believes bar members should also be able to vote online and through the mail — two methods that should increase voter participation.
“People I talked to told me the process was too archaic and time-consuming,” she said. “That was the chief complaint I heard. I think we can start working on that in the next month or two.”
Emery said Schlesinger is elated and thrilled for her. She also wanted to make sure everyone understands that as an employee of the federal government, she campaigned for the office on her personal time.
“This has been a very challenging process and difficult way of using up my personal leave,” she said. “But the news about this campaign process is that I met a lot of warm, kind-hearted and very bright lawyers.”