critical, unavoidable job of raising funds. And our need for funds, like everything else in the world, has gone up again this year. Well, I am thrilled to report that as I was writing this in early January, I got confirmation that our EAGLE team and YOU — the membership of the FJA — have broken all records and fully underwritten the largest EAGLE budget in FJA history. That’s kind of cool, but here is the thing that makes it crazy — this was also the largest political budget ever in a non-election year, by a country mile.
EAGLE programs. That overwhelming generosity will allow us to begin seriously funding our endowment — a grail we have chased for years — and make possible some sweet organizational reforms you will be hearing about as soon as we can implement them. In light of that massive gift, I am prepared to publicly forgive Steve for going to Plant High School, and also for getting consistently better grades than me in his CLE presentations. Thank you, Mr. Yerrid!
And this all happened while at the same time, I have been generating a stupid amount of extra work for everybody with the new membership benefits and fundraising plan. Meeting these funding goals in the swirl of everything else that is going on is an extraordinary achievement by our professional fundraising team. Rob Paulk, John (Marin’s dad) Fox, Elisha Charpentier, John Brazzell and Lizzy Shane have done amazing work, but then, they are professionals. The true superstars of this effort have been the president just before me, and the one who is about to follow, Jimmy G and Trey Lytal together with all of our Regional Vanguard Chairs.
Finally, by the time you read this we should have begun implementing our formal mentorship program, thanks to the following stellar group of members who have agreed to be on that committee:
They just freaking handled it, and for that I am — and YOU should be — eternally grateful. And speaking of YOU….
Expect a communication that will have all the details, but if you would like to mentor as many as three new members, please let us know — ESPECIALLY if you are a woman, a young lawyer with wisdom to share, an appellate attorney who wants to mentor young wannabe competitors, a member of a diverse cultural or racial group, or an LGBT member, we definitely need you. We also need you if you are just old and boring, but have made enough mistakes in your practice that you have something to share to help the kids who are following in our steps avoid repeating them all! Contact Angela or Ben for now, so they can get you into the database for assignment of protégés in the very near future. It won’t hurt!
Nobody at FJA ever forgets that the true burden of all this fundraising is borne by the people who are writing the checks. Asking for money is hard. Writing the actual checks, for most of us, is even harder. So, thanks to all of you who responded to the calls and requests for PAC contributions and enhanced EAGLE membership pledges. The last thing I want to say about fundraising is this: At the very end of the year, I got word that Steve Yerrid, one of the very few members whose portrait already hangs in the FJA’s hallowed pantheon of lifetime EAGLE contributor champions, had bestowed another enormous gift of over a quarter million dollars to our
Eric Romano Trey Lytal Leslie Kroeger Tiffany Faddis Laurie Briggs Angela Rodante (Chair)
PJ Scheiner Lefferts Mabie III (that’s right! LLMIII!) Patrick McArdle Brenda Fulmer Elizete Velado Ben Whitman (Co-Chair)
Finally, if I haven’t said this before, THANK YOU for letting me be your president. I’m having a ton of fun doing it.
www.FloridaJusticeAssociation.org | January/February 2018 | 9