Eugene Pettis (JD 85), the president-elect who will become the first African-American to lead The Florida Bar, speaks to area youth at the second annual Youth Law and Justice Conference on Feb. 26. (Photo by Maggie Powers)

By Felicia Holloman (3L)

UF Law hosted the second annual Youth Law and Justice Conference on Feb. 26. The daylong event brought more than 70 local middle and high school students to campus for discussions raising awareness of legal issues affecting today’s youth.

Students, legal practitioners, and faculty filled the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom for a welcome by Eugene Pettis (JD 85), the president-elect who will become the first African-American to lead The Florida Bar.

Pettis encouraged students to seek success, whatever their circumstances and hurdles.

“You cannot be afraid to succeed,” Pettis said. “Even if your family is not there to bridge your success, you must not let that define you.”

Pettis also offered a few of his early life experiences as proof, such as overcoming a speech impediment to become a successful trial attorney.

“I was able to reach deep within and grab something that is within each of us. I believed in myself,” Pettis said.

After a motivational opening, students were split into groups and dispersed to classroom workshops. In one workshop, students re-enacted a criminal proceeding. Three students played attorneys defending a student who was arrested for gang activities in a park. Three other students played prosecutors, while the rest of the class was split into witnesses and jury members.

Canaan Goldman, an assistant public defender, presided as judge over the mock trial and offered guidance to the groups.

“You are going to have to figure out what is a ‘gang’ and what is an ‘activity,’” Goldman said.

The proceeding sparked lively debate among the groups and ended with the acquittal of the defendant.

The students also attended a workshop focusing on handgun laws and provided students a chance to discuss their views on how to limit gun violence.

Kristofer Eisenmenger (JD 09), an assistant public defender, reviewed gun laws, particularly weapons that may be frequently used by teenagers. The topic triggered a flurry of questions about potato guns, air soft guns, and even slingshots.

Meanwhile, Caroline Zapiec (2L) educated students with facts about handguns, including that the U.S. has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world.

“Every day, about 32 people die due to a gun-related act,” said Zapiec.

Dane Ullian (2L) then presented the students with a hypothetical situation to change the gun laws in a fictional town. Student opinions ranged from allowing open carry of weapons to installing strict gun licensing laws.

The conference was presented by the Josiah T. Walls Foundation, in partnership with UF Law’s Black Law Student Association, Caribbean Law Student Association, Criminal Law Association, Association of Public Interest Law, and The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Law Student Division.

President-elect of The Florida Bar Eugene Pettis (JD 85) will speak about law and justice to area youth. (Photo by Elise Giordano)

By Matt Walker
Senior writer

President-elect of The Florida Bar Eugene Pettis (JD 85) will speak about law and justice to student participants in the second annual Josiah T. Walls Bar Association’s Law and Justice Youth Conference. The conference will take place at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, on Saturday from 8:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. More than 70 local middle and high school students, along with more than 40 local lawyers, law professors and law students will attend this daylong conference to discuss legal issues affecting area youth.

Pettis will speak to the students about his legal career, leadership in the community, and personal ethics. His comments will encourage students to view the law as an integral part of their lives.  He will also touch on the role of lawyers, judges and law enforcement officers in young adults’ everyday lives.

The Law and Justice Youth Conference will give area youth the tools they can use to become active and affect positive change in their community. Using resources from Street Law, a nonprofit organization which creates teaching materials for law, democracy and human rights, the conference participants will first discuss issues relating to the police in their communities.

“This year’s conference will highlight the importance of civic action and provide a forum in which youth of Gainesville are shown how the law can be a vehicle of self-empowerment and positive change. As local lawyers, it is important for us to continually encourage our youth to positively contribute to the community and create opportunities for them to interact closely with legal professionals,” states Sheree Graham, president of Josiah T. Walls Bar Association.

“As local lawyers, it is important for us to continually encourage our youth to positively contribute to the community and create opportunities for them to interact closely with legal professionals.”

Pettis, who will be sworn in as president of The Florida Bar in June, will be the first African-American in the bar’s history to serve in this position. A co-founder of Haliczer Pettis & Schwamm in Fort Lauderdale, Pettis focuses his practice in the areas of medical malpractice, personal injury, commercial litigation and employment law. Pettis has served in numerous leadership positions, including chairman of the Judicial Independence Committee of The Florida Bar and vice-chairman of the South Florida Water Management District’s governing board, and currently serves on the board of trustees of the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law. Throughout his career, he has earned numerous legal awards and accolades, including being selected by his peers for inclusion in the 2010 and 2011 editions of The Best Lawyers in America in the specialties of medical malpractice law and personal injury litigation. Pettis has earned Martindale-Hubbell’s top “AV” rating for his high professional and ethical standards.

The Law and Justice Youth Conference is presented by the Josiah T. Walls Bar Association, in partnership with UF Law’s Black Law Student Association, Caribbean Law Student Association, Criminal Law Association, Association of Public Interest Law, and The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division Law Student Division.

The Josiah T. Walls Bar Association and the 8th Judicial Circuit Bar Association received funding from the Florida Bar Diversity Leadership grant to support the 2013 conference.

Established in 1977 and incorporated in 1997, the Josiah T. Walls Bar Association, Inc. is a voluntary minority bar organization that has grown from five to more than 30 attorneys from Alachua and surrounding counties. At its inception, JTWBA was a social networking organization, which culminated into a support system for African-American attorneys. In 2005, members decided to expand the organization by encouraging other minority attorneys to become members. Membership is comprised of attorneys, law professors, judges and law students who live or regularly practice in the 8th, 5th, and 3rd Judicial Circuits. In the spirit and legacy of Josiah T. Walls, the association is dedicated to promoting professional excellence, giving back to the community, and mentoring future lawyers. For more information, please visit http://www.jtwba.com/index.html.

The Florida Bar YLD Law Student Division provides law students from each Florida law school with a variety of activities designed to help connect students at Florida law schools with lawyers and leaders of The Florida Bar. Among such activities are networking and mentoring opportunities with Florida Bar members, ethics and professionalism training, pro bono and community service opportunities, and opportunities to participate in the activities and work of various sections of The Florida Bar. These activities are designed to enhance the law school experience and further the future interests of the legal profession. The division works to facilitate a smooth transition between law school and practicing law. For more information, please visit http://www.flayld.org/students/.

This profile of Eugene K. Pettis originally ran in the March 21, 2011, issue of 

Eugene K. Pettis (JD 85) is not a just a partner in the law firm of Haliczer, Pettis and Schwamm. He is a partner to every business, government agency or individual that the firm represents.

“My job brings about not just the responsibility for litigating, but I also must manage my client’s needs prior to and after any legal issues arise,” Pettis said. “My clients know they’re getting an experienced lawyer and a counselor to their business and legal matters.”

For more than 25 years, Pettis has worked to stand out from the massive field of lawyers in Florida and across the nation. In doing so, he took risks, marketed himself and built his firm into a business.

The result was an enormity of success for the Fort Lauderdale native who has represented Starbucks, Exxon Mobil and other Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies in civil litigation.

However, Pettis grew up in opposition to his mother’s insistence that he should become a lawyer. He originally enrolled as a pre-dental student at the University of Florida, completing advanced chemistry and mathematics courses. He chose to leave the program after realizing that he wasn’t passionate about the subjects.

“It was then that I realized maybe Mom was right,” he said.

After a brief stint focusing on an interdisciplinary study of environmental law, Pettis switched to political science.

Continuing his studies as a Gator, Pettis enrolled in the University of Florida Levin College of Law, where he became heavily involved in moot court.

“Even though it focused on appellate-type work, it helped sharpen my advocacy skills,” he said.

Upon graduation, Pettis returned to Fort Lauderdale to work for the firm of Conrad, Scherer and James. When one of the firm’s senior partners and his mentor, Rex Conrad, retired in 1991, Pettis and James Haliczer chose to leave and to start their own firm. Richard Schwamm joined the firm in 1996, establishing the trio’s current firm.

“I chose to step out on faith as a young lawyer and develop ownership of my own firm,” Pettis said.

Since then, he has worked hard to develop his firm into a business that his clients and the public can trust.

“One thing is to practice law, but the next thing is to build a practice into a successful legal business, which encompasses excellence in law and client service,” he said.

Pettis is successful on both fronts. He was included in the 2010 and 2011 editions of The Best Lawyers in America and earned Martindale-Hubbell’s top “AV” rating among multiple other professional recognitions.

In the field of medical malpractice and personal injury, he has earned many favorable verdicts for the defendants he represented and multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts for the plaintiffs who hired him. He also represents corporate clients in areas of commercial litigation and employment matters.

Pettis also represents hospitals, the School Board of Broward County and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office. In his career, he has had more than 60 trials of complex legal matters.

“I have fun structuring the case and the case strategy,” Pettis said, “but the true test for litigators is to lay out that strategy in front of a jury and have (it) accept your case as the most persuasive.”

To build a successful business, Pettis has made his firm a staple in the communities of Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, where a second branch of his firm exists.

“We spend a lot of time trying to make Broward and Orange counties better places,” Pettis said.

Rooted in humble backgrounds, Pettis always made community involvement a priority in his personal and professional lives.

Pettis grew up the youngest of seven children, and he watched with amazement as his father, a janitor and a waiter, and his mother, a teacher’s assistant, managed to make ends meet.

His family was named by Nancy Reagan as a Great American Family in 1985 and was awarded a trip to the White House for the honor.

“It was truly a symbol of the job my mother and father did in raising all of us,” Pettis said.

In honor of his mother’s commitment to education, Pettis and his wife, Shiela, and other siblings have created several scholarships and endowments in her name to help students in Fort Lauderdale and Broward County afford a college degree. In 2004, Pettis and his wife established the Pettis Family Endowed Scholarship, which gives annual scholarships to selected students at Broward College.

“You have to give people the tools to better themselves,” Pettis said. “Only then will they be able to stand on their own two feet.”

Pettis continues to hold strong family ties. He has two daughters, Shenele, 21, and Shardè, 16. His nephew, Yohance A. Pettis (JD 04), is an associate at his firm.

Pettis also remains committed to UF. He is a member of the Law Center Association’s Board of Trustees and served eight years on the board of directors for the University of Florida Foundation.

“I think that there is no more rewarding career than the practice of law,” Pettis said. “But to benefit from its richness, you have to get involved in your community and practice.”

Pettis will be sworn in as president-elect in June 2012 when fellow UF Law alum Gwynne Young (JD 74) becomes The Florida Bar president. When Pettis takes over the office in 2013 he will make history as the first African-American president of the Florida Bar. Similarly, another UF Law grad — former ABA President Stephen N. Zack — made history by becoming the first Hispanic-American to lead The Florida Bar in 1989.

Pettis specializes in medical malpractice, personal injury, commercial litigation and employment law, and has been practicing since 1985. He is a founding partner at Haliczer, Pettis & Schwamm in Fort Lauderdale. During his tenure as president, Pettis said judicial funding will be high on his list of priorities.

“I will continue the advancement of identifying a long-term, predictable source of court funding so that every Floridian will be assured access to our courts,” he said. “We must also appreciate that an effective judicial system also includes well-funded court clerks, state attorneys’ offices and public defenders, which all contribute to our quality of life and democracy.”

Pettis also emphasized the importance of promoting diversity within the legal profession. He said there has been an ongoing dialogue of diversity over the past decade, but there have been questions of whether or it has translated into a “real measurable change.”

“I will work at every level of the bar, through sections, voluntary bars, standing committees and the governor’s office, on JNC and judicial appointments to achieve inclusion of all sectors of our profession,” Pettis said. “I truly believe the strength of the bar rests in the whole; together, there is benefit for us all.”

Finally, Pettis said the recent economic downturn has had a significant impact on legal aid organizations.

“We must recognize an obligation to strive for equal access to an availability of legal services for all Floridians in need. The Florida Bar, through its Florida Bar Foundation, must meet the call in the coming years.”

A member of the bar’s governing board since 2005, Pettis currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Board of Governors and is reviewing the bar’s disciplinary system as co-chair of the Hawkins Commission.

Pettis has also been an active alum and loyal donor at UF Law over the years.

Last year, Pettis and his wife Sheila established the Eugene Pettis Family BLSA Academic Support Endowment to help support Black Law School Association activities that can enrich the academic experience of BLSA members. He is also the chairman of UF’s Heritage of Leadership committee and a member of UF Law’s Board of Trustees.

As The Florida Bar president, Pettis will join a number of UF Law alumni who have led the bar in recent years including John G. White III (JD 83), immediate past President Mayanne Downs (JD 87), current President Scott Hawkins (JD 83) and president-elect, Gwynne Young.

“I have always held high my pride of being a Florida Gator and the Gator Nation,” Pettis said. “But never have I experienced the breadth of the Gator Nation than when I was campaigning across this state. The reach of UF Law covers every corner of this state. I look forward to continuing the tradition of leadership of UF Law within the bar. It speaks volumes of the quality of education UF Law provides when you note that I will be the fifth UF Law alum out of the past six to serve as president of The Florida Bar.”