Charlie Crist, Attorney at Law To many Floridians, Crist’s new job is an insult to his former office. In fact, it perfectly fits the arc of his career.
You may want to pick up one of those magnetic doohickeys and stick Charlie Crist’s new 800 number on the fridge door. Hey, it can happen to any of us — a fender bender, a slip and fall, a smoking toaster — but if it happens to you, God forbid, you’ll want to put your hands on a personal-injury lawyer pronto. And in that moment of personal anguish or avarice or whatever, Charlie Crist could be your man.
Yes, outgoing Florida governor Charlie Crist takes a new job this week with Morgan & Morgan, the state’s premier personal-injury law firm. That’s their adjective, not mine. But M&M offices do seem to be omnipresent around the state, pitched at approximately the same 50-mile intervals as Holiday Inns. That comparison comes easily to mind because the billboards along the interstates are frequently cheek by jowl, the motel chain’s right there next to the law firm’s. When you think of Morgan & Morgan, I’m trying to suggest, you should not confuse it with, say, Sullivan & Cromwell.
Advertisement
As news of Crist’s career change spread through the Florida political community, some of the stuffier members of the establishment yelped in pain. How could the governor of our great state so disparage the office? Couldn’t he have joined a white-shoe corporate firm or headed up a college on the make or presided over an overstuffed foundation? Something with a little dignity, for Pete’s sake? It’s clear that the offended parties have not reflected on the arc of Charlie Crist’s life in the law, a professional first love to which he has long said he wished one day to return.
The main chapters in that life are clearly demarked. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree from Florida State back in the Seventies, Crist enrolled at the Cumberland School of Law, part of Samford University, near Birmingham, Ala. It was an old school, well established, but not generally considered to be of the first rank; as a student you were less likely to find yourself seated next to a future David Boies or Nino Scalia than a future Charlie Crist.
After getting his degree in 1981, Crist dashed back across the state line and sat for the Florida bar exam. El problemo: The public record is not clear on just how many times Crist took the bar exam, but it has been reported without challenge that on at least the first two occasions, the result was . . . el flunko. But Crist stuck to it and, when admitted to the bar on the umpteenth try, began his career as a lawyer for professional baseball.
It was not big-time legal work nor, alas, was it big-league baseball. After five years of pinballing around the minor leagues, Crist joined a law firm headed by one J. Emory Wood. Crist became the second lawyer at the firm. The first lawyer, J. Emory himself, was married to Crist’s sister Margaret. The brothers-in-law scrambled away at the practice of law, but there would be, for them, no billboards on the interstate.
With this “solid record of professional accomplishment,” as he later described it, Crist then began his breathless race through the Florida political system, running for some offices that would have him (state senator in 1992, education commissioner in 2000) and some that would not (state senator in 1986, U.S. Senator in 1998), but running, always running, becoming along the way the famously invertebrate politician the country has come to know over the past few years. And then, as happens in all classic stories of American pluck, Charlie Crist got his big break.
In 2002, he managed to get himself tapped to run on the Florida GOP ticket for attorney general. While not even his doting mother would have argued that Crist was the state’s top lawyer, it was not a political season for the picking of nits about competence, career, or credentials. Crist was running on a ticket headed by the wildly popular incumbent governor, Jeb Bush. Well, Crist wasn’t really running. It was more like gliding. In the Florida of 2002, even a Fort Lauderdale lifeguard could have been elected as a down-ballot Republican. In the general election, Crist ran well behind Bush (but no doubt well ahead of the lifeguard), and in 2003 he assumed office as the official, no kidding, numero uno lawyer in the state of Florida.
All of which explains why some of my (admittedly, and archly, white-shoe) lawyer pals said yesterday when Morgan & Morgan announced its newest partner, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”
— Neal B. Freeman writes about politics from Jacksonville, Fla.
Not sure what Floridians are complaining about. In Illinois, our former governors either do reality TV, head to jail, or both. Of course, our current one would be great to have anywhere else other than in office since he is busy destroying our state's economy...
Thanks for this hilarious recap of a career most of us (including me) knew zero about. It certainly explains the "anything to get elected" party-dropping flip-flopping of recent history...and Crist's relative ineptitude at it. I guess a tan will only take you so far in this world, but it sure took this guy a long, long way indeed.
Christ is trying to make money in the private sector using his training and knowledge? I can see how a conservative would find that shameful.
Looking forward to your next column, in which you lament the lost dignity of Florida's governorship brought on by its current holder, who resigned his position as CEO of the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain in the face of a massive fraud investigation that led to a record-setting fine.
Ever since moving to central Florida, I've been hearing on TV,"Hello, I'm John Morgan of Morgan, Colling and Gilbert" in those ponderous southern tones. When not doing time for DUI, Morgan has been admonishing me to never ever talk to an insurance company without first consulting an attorney, finishing every script with the Al-Gore-y "FOR the PEE-pul".
We (Florida) got wise and elected a governor that fought against Obamacare, while the slippery RINO Crist makes his exit to one of the organizations that has done the most to gum up the healthcare works. Yeah, that sounds about right.
At least Charlie Crist has a sense of humor about himself.
I think he behaved disgracefully over the last year, but he probably did not do any damage to the GOP, and he managed to destroy his own political career.
Back in March of 2010, I would have advised him to drop out of the 2010 Florida GOP U.S. Senate primary, and run for re-election as Florida governor. He would have glided to re-election and would have been well situated to make a run for the other U.S. Senate seat. Instead, he decided to burn all of his GOP bridges in a foolhardy independent run. Now, he is done.
Wow! Charlie Crist, now a member of a personal injury law firm - can't wait to see him on commercials on the local UHF broadcast stations: Charlie in a white Judo uniform, throwing some "suit" across the room and then saying, "I'm Charlie Crist and I'll fight for your rights!"
No love lost for Charlie Christ, but I think that painting all personal injury attorneys with the same brush is wrong. I'm proud to be a medical malpractice trial attorney, and a conservative. My 20+ years in practice tell me that you can represent individuals (e.g. people killed by real negligence) honorably, and in so doing can sometimes do good work for the public in the process. Do we charge for our services? Yes we do, and the fee (revenue) pays all cost of overhead, including all secretaries, rent, etc. and very substantial case disbursements, and undertaking inherent risk.
There are also sleazy personal injury attorneys, who garner all the press. Cases that are not brought don't get news stories, and cases that get appropriate results (the vast majority) also get no coverage.
And, some of the sleaziest attorneys I've seen are of the "white shoe" variety.
So, you can be honorable, and productive, in legal work for individuals, or for corporations, but the mere fact that you represent indivduals, and are not part of a corporate firm, is truly beside the point.
Mock him if you will. But I bet he will make more money than most of the white shoe fellows, without having to suffer their insufferable company. And isn't that the main point of working and being in business, to make money? There is much to mock about Charlie Crist the political "invertebrate" but how do you win? The white shoes are mocked for being all hoidy toidy, but the "minor leagues" are mocked for not being prestigious enough.
And why not? He made our flesh crawl in the last months of his term. It is only fitting that he join a pack of hyenas that will only trot him out when there might be some money to be made or some pro-trial lawyer legislation to be lobbied for. Just don't think for a minute that they will actually allow him to try a case. John Morgan may be many things, but stupid isn't one of them.
Crist is pathetic. Sure. "Famously invertebrate" is dead on.
But Freeman is clueless about plaintiffs attorneys. Good for him. Apparently his life has not been touched by the kinds of catastrophic injuries or death that careless truckers, doctors, consumer products manufacturers (and on and on) cause every day.
Most of us (plaintiffs lawyers) are decent people, and the best of us are highly skilled advocates who could run circles around Freeman's white-shoe-firm friends in the courtroom.
Also, never forget: some of us are NRO-supporting conservatives!
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Neal B. Freeman - a genuine, no-holds-barred country club Republican. Neal, I thought your kind was near extinct these days... but this catty piece of white shoe elitism proved me wrong.
Several commentators have said it already, but Mr. Neal's article smacks of elitism and snobbishness. It was disappointing to see conservatives riducule Harriet Miers for having attended SMU instead of Hahvahd, and it's just as disappointing to see Mr. Neal give the same treatment to Christ for attending Cumberland. I'm no Christ fan, and not even a Floridian, but there are a ton of intelligent, thoughtful, professional and capable attorneys in America who didn't graduate from an Ivy League law school (I'm one of them). And Mr. Neal's disparagement of Christ for entering the private work sector as a plaintiff's attorney because the linens aren't white enough is just as bad. Christ is actually working for a living now, instead of holding public office, wearing a pointy hat in a think tank, or snarking about people he dislikes.
Mr. Neal, you should get yourself a job in the real world, like Mr. Christ.
Wow - starting off the long weekend with a heavy dose of elitism and snobbery. As an attorney at one of the "white shoe" corporate firms of which Freeman seems so fond, I say good for Crist. He will make more money and work half the hours, and won't have to suffer the company of academically overachieving but socially stunted tools. By the way, who cares where he went to law school? This piece smacks of the old school country club mentality which is one of the reasons we conservatives continue to have trouble attracting young people.
Crist will continue to be in his 'professional' life just what he was in his political life; a one-trick show pony without any pedigree and, more sadly, without any real world skills other than being well-dressed, tan, and slippery (if you can indeed call those skills at all). Good riddance to the lounge lizard governor of the formerly great state of Florida. Facing tremendous challenges including necessary insurance reform, huge budget shortfalls, miserable public education, residential housing disaster, and imploding demographics as families and small businesses leave Florida ASAP, he did...
absolutely nothing.
Buh-bye, Charlie.
Gone and well-forgotten.
May Florida survive his legacy.
