The animosity between two black professionals began when one wrote a letter questioning another's fee.
By WILLIAM R. LEVESQUE
Published July 13, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - The woman came to lawyer Grady Irvin Jr. and asked for a legal opinion. Was the fee she paid an attorney in a civil case excessive?
Irvin provided the opinion in a letter calling into question the fee charged by attorney Darryl Rouson. That letter has touched off a dispute between two of Pinellas County's best-known black lawyers that is rare for its open animosity.
The woman filed a complaint with the Florida Bar against Rouson, president of the St. Petersburg branch of the NAACP, a complaint both the woman and Rouson said may soon be dismissed by the Bar.
After Rouson found out about Irvin's letter, and the Bar complaint, he sent a fax to several black lawyers in Pinellas.
"Here's what a brother does (to) another," Rouson wrote. "I have never in my life urged anyone to go to the Bar on a fellow black lawyer .... Be careful."
Irvin, who said he never urged the woman to report Rouson to the Bar, said Rouson's fax was an ethical lapse and a misuse of race to attack him. The St. Petersburg lawyer said he did nothing wrong in giving a legal opinion to someone who asked for help.
"I think his intent was to say to other black attorneys that Grady Irvin is not one of them," Irvin said in an interview. "But what he did was wrong."
Irvin sent a letter to Rouson saying he was upset that Rouson brought race into the dispute.
Irvin wrote, "I refused to do so because in my capacity as a member of the Bar, but most importantly because of the way I was raised as a child, I look at the merits of a situation first and foremost, regardless of race."
Rouson said he regrets getting mad and sending the fax. But he still thinks Irvin should have referred the woman to another lawyer rather than help her attack a fellow black lawyer.
"It's tough enough to be a black lawyer and be viewed as competent and capable in St. Petersburg and Pinellas County," Rouson said, noting the city's segregated past.
"When two people are alleged friends, fraternity brothers, in a small professional community, there should be some camaraderie," Rouson said.
The Bar complaint by former client Calvester Benjamin-Anderson is going to be dismissed by the Bar, Rouson said. Benjamin-Anderson said the Bar has informed her that it does not have enough evidence to proceed. The Florida Bar declined to comment.
Benjamin-Anderson hired Rouson in a lawsuit she filed against her employer, Florida Power, that alleged sexual and racial bias on the job. The suit was dismissed by a judge in early 2001.
Benjamin-Anderson entered into a contingency fee agreement with Rouson, which meant he would be paid only if his client won a settlement.
Later, Benjamin-Anderson said she paid Rouson $16,500 in fees and costs, $5,600 of which Rouson said he refunded. She also paid $20,000 to a white attorney who was working with Rouson on the case.
Irvin later told Benjamin-Anderson that the money she paid to Rouson might be considered an excessive fee because he had already entered into a contingency fee agreement.
In his fax, Rouson wrote, "The white lawyer took $20,000 of this ladies money and nothing happened."
Rouson acknowledged the white attorney had an "airtight" contract with the woman "that she could not get around."
Rouson did not have a contract. But he said Benjamin-Anderson had a letter of agreement.
He said Benjamin-Anderson already had lost a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Rouson said most lawyers would have dropped the civil suit at that point since the case, with the defeat, would have been difficult to win.
"I told her if she wanted to continue, she would have to invest in the case along with us," Rouson said.
Greg Showers, a black lawyer who knows both men, said he didn't get the fax. He said he hoped both could put the dispute behind them.
"This just got out of hand," Showers said. "I think they will eventually resolve their differences."
