Gonzalez ends his campaign, citing the needs of his clients
By Gary Blankenship
Senior Editor
West Palm Beach attorney Scott G. Hawkins has become president-elect designate of The Florida Bar after Coral Gables attorney Ervin A. Gonzalez withdrew from the race.

Hawkins will become the Bar’s 2010-11 president-elect when he is sworn in at the Bar’s Annual Convention in June.

Gonzalez is one of the lead plaintiffs’ attorneys in the class action lawsuits over defective Chinese drywall used to build thousands of homes in Florida and other parts of the country. He said his duties to his clients had a greater claim on his time.

In a January 22 letter to the Bar, Gonzalez said, “I find that my clients’ current needs are overwhelming and that I must focus on their needs rather than my goal to become president-elect of The Florida Bar. Given the current status of the Chinese drywall litigation, it is difficult for me to give the campaign and my clients my full attention. I believe that as professionals our duty requires us to protect our clients’ interests first and foremost.”

He added, “I am sure the Bar will excel under the excellent leadership and guidance of Governor Scott Hawkins. I wish him continued success. I will continue serving the Bar and my community and will make sure to assist the Bar, the profession, and my fellow lawyers on matters of great importance.

“I thank all of my supporters and all of you for your consideration and for the opportunity to have qualified as a candidate for the office of president-elect.”

Had Gonzalez stayed in the race, it would have been the first contested Bar presidential election in 11 years.

Hawkins said he had spoken to Gonzalez after the announcement, and learned of the decision on his way to a campaign event.

“I was very surprised and understood that Ervin was making the decision because of the large client burdens he has, and I think he was making the right decision in placing client matters first,” Hawkins said. “It was an unexpected way to appreciate the great privilege that we had both been working so hard to seek.”

When he first heard he would be president-elect designate, Hawkins said, “My first thought was to call the Bar and stop the election machine and we could save the money, and second of all to thank everyone who had gotten behind the campaign. I received a lot of support.”

He said he plans to work closely with current President Jesse Diner and President-Elect Mayanne Downs.

“They’ve been extremely welcoming, and my goal is to assimilate as well as I can into the leadership team and begin the learning curve from a board member who is on a few select committees to having a broader view of the broader spectrum of work that is going on.”

His top goals are to encourage lawyers to take a more active role in their professional lives, reach out to government lawyers (who make up 15 percent of the Bar), and better inform the membership about the role of the Bar’s lawyer regulation responsibilities.

Hawkins said he enjoyed campaigning and was looking forward to answering 10 questions submitted by the Bar News to the candidates. The question-and-answer dialogue would have run in this edition of the News. Hawkins said he particularly wanted to answer two questions.

One was to give a one-sentence piece of advice to a new lawyer: “Seek to work with people of high caliber and integrity, to realize that financial gain should not be the priority and to develop a pattern of lifestyle of keeping within your means,” Hawkins said. “And to realize, like a great tree in a forest, it takes a long time to grow a great reputation, and it can be destroyed quickly.”

The second question asked the candidate to describe a turning point in his career.

Hawkins said his answer would have covered a time when as a young lawyer he was working with a senior partner on a major case. They had flown to another city for depositions and were reviewing stacks of documents when they came across privileged information that had been accidentally disclosed by the opposing side.

“Working with the senior partner, we consulted with other senior people on how to handle it, consulted briefly with the rule, and called the other lawyer and said, ‘We have discovered this document and you probably want to come and get it.’ He was there in three minutes and said, ‘Thank you for doing the right thing.’

“As I looked back, I realized there was an important lesson there. The senior lawyer showed behavior we would all want to model. A lot of what lawyers do is in the quiet of their own office where they have to make decisions like that.”

Hawkins, a board certified business litigation lawyer and vice chair of the board of directors at Jones, Foster, Johnston & Stubbs, headed an effort to revitalized the Palm Beach County Bar Association in the early 1990s, including making bar elections more open and encouraging greater diversity in association leadership. Hawkins led a similar effort in the late 1990s when he headed the National Alumni Association for the University of Florida.

Hawkins also serves on the University of Florida Foundation Board of Directors and is a UF College of Law trustee. He received both his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Florida, getting his J.D. in 1983. He was president of the Palm Beach County Bar Association and in 1995 was named The Florida Bar Young Lawyers Division’s Most Productive Lawyer.

His civic and legal work includes service as president of Children’s Place and Connor’s Nursery, which help sick or abused children, and sitting on the Board of Trustees of Palm Beach Atlantic University. He chairs the Palm Beach County Bar’s Professionalism Council.

Since joining the Board of Governors in 2004, Hawkins has served on the Disciplinary Procedure and Budget committees, and he was a charter member of the Special Committee on Judicial Independence, now the Standing Committee on Judicial Independence.