Tampabay: Lawyer's zeal changes scenery

Twenty-five years later, the boy from Wauchula continues collecting statistics. But instead of tossing baseballs, he now slings controversial development deals as one of the Tampa Bay area's most aggressive real estate lawyers.

From his Clearwater office off U.S. 19, the 47-year-old has handled deals that changed the landscapes in Pinellas, Pasco and Hillsborough counties.

While most land-use attorneys employ a delicate stroke at the bargaining table, Tew seemingly favors bare-knuckles negotiations. Speaking from the lectern, he often reminds officials of their legal obligations despite objections from residents. Homeowners have booed him. A Hillsborough County commissioner once said he had the charm of a hedgehog.

Yet he keeps chalking up wins, losses and clients. "Your whole reputation is staked on being right more than you are wrong," said Tew. "Because if you are not right more than you are wrong, you are not going to get hired."

Nowhere is that more apparent than in northern New Tampa, where Tew has represented nearly every recent golf community and office park.

His legal savvy has helped Tampa annex thousands of acres. But to homeowners, Tew's name has become synonymous with a different type of growth. Each deal he handles draws more people. New Tampa's population has quintupled in a decade.

"He definitely is an aggressive and zealous representative of his clients," said City Council member Shawn Harrison, a lawyer who lives in Tampa Palms. "I conduct my legal practice in the same way. I also feel like I have to be aggressive and zealous in representing my constituents. Sometimes his clients' desires and my constituents' desires are going to clash."

Like him or not, most agree that Tew knows the law. A Rhodes Scholar finalist, he finished first in his law school class and interviewed for a job with U.S. Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Along the way, the man who envisioned himself as the next great trial attorney evolved into a sharp businessman.

"I used to make fun of real estate lawyers," said Tew, an East Lake father of four. "I called them dirt lawyers and asked them how they could sit there behind a desk, shuffle paper and have such a boring practice."

Country boy

Law firms are filled with lawyers who benefited from privileged roots.

Tew made his own way from modest means in Wauchula, a rural town north of the Everglades. At Hardee Senior High, he captained the baseball and football teams, served as president of the National Honor Society and finished as valedictorian in 1972.

"If he ever got into a situation where we needed him to get a strikeout, and he didn't get it, he would grit his teeth and bow his neck," said Jim Youmans, his baseball coach. "The next guy up after that didn't have a chance."

(One of his children appears to have inherited his competitive nature. Jenni Tew, 20, was a nationally recognized figure skater during the 1990s who trained for the Olympic Games.)

That competitive zeal helped Tew finish first in his class at Davidson College in North Carolina, and at Vanderbilt Law, where he had a full scholarship.

After law school, Tew turned down offers in New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and headed back to Florida. "I was a really brash, hard-headed kid from Wauchula," he said.

At Johnson Blakely in Clearwater, he earned a $250,000 decision against American Motor Corp. in federal court just two years out of law school. Tew favored trial work. But not long after his 31st birthday, when Tew opened his own practice, he realized that litigation, though exciting, did not provide steady income to run a firm. Within two years, he began personally handling real estate contracts.

Tew discovered that commissions and councils were a lot like juries, only he could engage his audience in debate. "In a jury trial, you have a judge riding herd on you, telling you what you can and can't do," Tew said. "The beauty of a zoning hearing is you've got nobody riding herd. If you are a strong enough personality, you can pretty much control the process of what you are doing."

In a gentlemen's arena, Tew's hardball tactics sometimes chafe the opposition.

"He tends to try and tell the local government what they ought to do or he will take them to court," said attorney Tom Reese, who has opposed Tew while representing the Sierra Club. "A lot of times it depends on how willing the local government is to fight."

What sets him apart from many attorneys is his direct approach, said Andrew Irick, a former U.S. Home employee who has worked closely with Tew.

"A lot of attorneys like to walk into a meeting and put their hand on their big sword," Irick said. "Joel lays his sword down in the middle of the table and that sets the tone."

East Meadows, now the New Tampa country club community of Heritage Isles, was initially planned for unincorporated Hillsborough County. When the County Commission objected to the golf course, Tew negotiated with Tampa. Ultimately, the land became part of the city through annexation, as did other developments represented by Tew.

That's when then-County Commissioner Ed Turanchik, himself a lawyer, said Tew "has about as much charm as a hedgehog."

Tew doesn't apologize for his approach. "I do not get hired for the easy ones," he said. "What I found out is they tend to only hire me now for the ones that they think are going to be controversial."

Tew knows it's his face residents increasingly see when new developments threaten the overstressed road system. "I'm the dark prince who is getting all those approvals when the road is already overburdened," he said. "They are entirely correct. The road needs to be improved and the road needs to be improved immediately."

He prefers to blame government for failing to update the roads, notably the four-lane Bruce B. Downs Boulevard, even though developers have paid millions of dollars in impact fees for that purpose.

"Is it fair to not allow them to proceed because government is lagging behind?" he asked. "I actually can make a fairly logical argument that the pressure of the new development is what is going to get the road built, sooner rather than later, and that the money from the new development is going to help get it built. It's not like these new developments aren't paying their fair share."

Mayor Dick Greco's development consultant said Tew's criticisms are unfair, and that he underestimates the cost of widening Bruce B. Downs. "What Joel is trying to point out, and that's an historical debate in most communities, is whether impact fees . . . cover the cost of constructing the roads," said the consultant, Ron Rotella.

"I think you will find that in most communities, they will tell you the impact fees alone will not cover the cost. It funds a portion."

Ultimately, that's not Tew's concern. His job is to give his clients the best possible representation in a process that often feels like high-stakes poker with somebody else's money.

"I think it is probably scary being my client," he said. "I've seen some clients turn a little bit white. I've had several of them come up to me afterwards and say, "I was absolutely convinced you had blown it, you had pushed them way too far, and that we were totally going way down the tubes.' "

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