Kozyak wins Pro Bono Service Award
Kozyak wins Pro Bono Service Award
Senior Editor
The namesake of the state’s highest pro bono honor — Tobias Simon — was one vote away from being disbarred from The Florida Bar.
In accepting the Tobias Simon Pro Bono Service Award, John Kozyak, senior partner at Kozyak, Tropin and Throckmorton in Miami, told that story at the Florida Supreme Court on January 29, when he was honored for his contributions toward fostering diversity in the legal profession through the Kozyak Minority Mentoring Foundation and the annual Minority Mentoring Picnic that draws thousands of people from all over the state to forge relationships with minority law students.
The day before the ceremony, Kozyak was putting the finishing touches on his acceptance remarks, when an “amazing” email arrived from former Bar President Burton Young, who served in 1970.
“He told me a story that Tobias Simon came within one vote of The Florida Bar Board of Governors of being disbarred in 1969,” Kozyak said. “There had been a sit-in in Daytona Beach, and African-Americans were protesting the continuation of illegal segregation. They were arrested. The story goes that Toby Simon rushed to Daytona Beach and offered to help them. Some disgruntled lawyer turned him into the Bar for soliciting clients.”
When a Jacksonville city judge, acting as the referee in the grievance case, asked Simon if he did it, Simon replied, “Yes sir, I did.” The judge recommended disbarment. When the matter came to the Bar Board of Governors, Young recounted, the debate lasted all day on whether to agree to disbar Simon or dismiss the recommendation.
Young voted to dismiss the recommendation. The 1969 Bar President Mark Hulsey, Jr., said: “I have to work with you, Mr. Young, through next year. I have to live with myself. Call Mr. Simon and tell him he is a member of The Florida Bar.”
Three years later, Kozyak said, Simon received The Florida Bar Foundation’s Medal of Honor.
“When he was almost disbarred, one vote away, the Supreme Court recognized him with this award,” Kozyak said. “And today, I get that award and join so many people that I have admired for so many years, including Toby Simon.”
Just as attitudes changed about Simon, Kozyak praised the progress in changing the face of The Florida Bar.
“When I graduated from law school in 1975, the first Jewish justice had been appointed just six months before that. The first African-American justice had not yet been appointed. The first Hispanic justice followed many years later,” Kozyak said.
“I used to think in my early years that being a member of The Florida Bar was just a bunch of gray-haired white guys, and then I became one,” Kozyak said to laughter.
“And I look around at the Bar now, and I am very, very proud of what I see.”
But there is more work to be done, Kozyak said.
“Legal aid, legal services, public defenders, to name a few, need more support and funding. Our judicial system needs and must have its independence. Minority lawyers need to continue leading the way through our fragile society, which is still now too quick to judge people by their color, their gender, their preferences, their disabilities, or their religion,” Kozyak said.
At the annual picnic in Hialeah, he said, “Justice Quince and Justice Pariente and other justices and about 4,000 others can feel good about the future of our profession. But don’t forget Ferguson (Missouri) and many other places like it out there.
“Do not forget our Muslim brothers and sisters who are so misunderstood and targeted. Do not forget our oath to make sure that everyone has legal representation. Never tell a lawyer joke. We’re not joking about our obligations to the poor and the needy. Please, do not forget what my mom would say: ‘Do the right thing.’”
After thanking many lawyers and judges who have helped shape his career, Kozyak especially thanked his mother, Marilynn Greene Kozyak.
“There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of my mother for setting the bar high.”
Kozyak grew up in what he called a “meanly segregated city” in southern Illinois, about 20 miles from Ferguson.
“When I was in high school, you could see ‘colored only’ signs in St. Louis. And my mother taught me it was wrong to judge people by their color, and it was mandatory to be nice and respectful of everyone,” he said.
“My mother minimizes her intellect and her impact on others, but I’ll never forget this small lady and I, eating on the wrong side of the drugstore counter in the early ’60s in St. Louis — because, in her words, ‘It’s the right thing to do.’
“She was more courageous, far wiser than she will ever know or acknowledge. I know my parents are watching, and I must say, ‘Thank you.’
“Sometimes, it’s just that simple: the right thing to do. My mother would make Toby Simon feel proud. Every person I meet through pro bono work, every minority student I match with a lawyer or a judge makes me a better person.”
