Talbot ‘Sandy’ D’Alemberte Distinguished Endowed Chair established at FSU Law
Sandy D’Alemberte
A $2 million gift has allowed Florida State University College of Law to established the Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte Distinguished Endowed Chair.
“An anonymous donor provided the gift, which will support a legal scholar to be known as the D’Alemberte Distinguished Endowed Chair, whose research and teaching are exemplary and who will bring acclaim to the law school,” according to the university. “The chair will serve as a lasting tribute to former law school dean and university president Sandy D’Alemberte, whose contributions to the law school, university, state, country, and world were outstanding and many.”
Per the gift agreement, the person who holds the chair will share Sandy’s passion for freedom of speech and have expertise in constitutional law.
“We are very grateful for this gift and appreciate that it will allow us to memorialize one of the greatest attorneys and humans to grace our campus,” according to a press release published on the law school’s website.
D’Alemberte, who helped write and push through Article V of the Florida Constitution that modernized the state’s courts and served as ABA president, died in 2019.
D’Alemberte’s long legal career included extensive civil and — early in his career — criminal pro bono work, being a senior partner in one of the state’s top law firms with a client list that included top media companies, legislative work, bar association work, helping emerging democracies establish legal systems, legal education, and public university education. Through it all, he brought his characteristic wide smile, ready handshake, gracious and courtly bearing, and frequently a bow tie.
D’Alemberte served in the Florida House from 1966-72 and was named the outstanding first-time member in his first year and the “Outstanding Member of the Florida House” in his last year. He chaired the Judiciary Committee, and he hired Janet Reno, the future 11th Circuit state attorney and U.S. attorney general, as staff director. That committee produced Article V of the Florida Constitution, which created the modern Florida judicial system. Approved by voters in 1972, it remains substantially unchanged.
For years, he was a partner at the Miami firm of Steel, Hector and Davis where he was considered one of the state’s top trial, media, and First Amendment attorneys. One notable case resulted in the Florida Supreme Court allowing cameras in the courtroom — the first state to allow regular TV and photo coverage of civil and criminal proceedings.
In 1977-78, he chaired the state’s first Constitution Revision Commission and he served as law dean at FSU from 1984-89 and then president of FSU from 1994 to 2003. He continued teaching at the law school after leaving the presidency.
From 1991-92, he was president of the ABA, where he emphasized pro bono and other legal services for the poor and assisting Central and Eastern European countries with their justice system as they transitioned from communism to democracy. He praised American judges, lawyers, law firms, and law schools for their willingness to plunge into the latter project.
The FSU College of Law website lists some of his other accomplishments: president of the American Judicature Society from 1982-84, the 2001 Wickersham Award given by the Friends of the Law Library of Congress, the 2001 Distinguished Eagle Scout Award, the 1998 ABA Section of Legal Education Robert J. Kutak Award, the 1998 ABA World Order Under Law Award, the 1996 American Judicature Society Justice Award, the 1996 National Council of Jewish Women’s Hannah G. Solomon Award, the 1986 National Sigma Delta Chi First Amendment Award, and an American Academy of Television Arts and Sciences “Emmy” in 1985 for his work in open government. He also chaired the Florida Commission of Ethics from 1974-75 and was president of the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society from 1990-91.
Born June 1, 1933, in Tallahassee in the shadow of the modern Capitol building and in the house where his grandparents had been born, D’Alemberte attended public schools in Tallahassee and Chattahoochee. His father was a small-town lawyer who, D’Alemberte recalled, might be paid with produce or a ham. He received a B.A. degree with honors in political science from the University of the South in Sewanee, TN, and attended classes at the University of Virginia and FSU.
After service in the U.S. Navy Reserve as a lieutenant, D’Alemberte studied at the London School of Economics, and then attended the University of Florida School of Law, where he received his J.D. with honors in 1962.
