Tampabay: Law group hopes to be a beacon

ST. PETERSBURG -- In Pinellas County's segregated past, a black person couldn't go to a theater or eat a sandwich at many local restaurants, much less hope to practice law.

Until Fred G. Minnis Sr. opened an office on 22nd Street S in late 1956, no black attorney had ever practiced law full time in Pinellas. And to begin, it was difficult for pioneers like the late Minnis to attract business.

"I had clients who indicated that I wouldn't be able to represent them as well as white attorneys who had been around because they believed the white lawyers knew the judges, had the contacts," said retired Circuit Judge Frank H. White, who followed Minnis in 1960 as the county's second black attorney and later, its second black judge.

Nearly half a century after Minnis opened his practice, Pinellas' legal establishment is no longer an all-white affair, though the numbers aren't as encouraging as activists would like.

Of the county's 2,600 lawyers, an estimated 40 to 45 are actively practicing black lawyers.

A group of about 20 black attorneys, led by St. Petersburg criminal defense lawyer Dyril Flanagan, says it is trying to keep Minnis' pioneering ways alive with the Fred G. Minnis Bar Association. It's a group Flanagan and other members hope will attract more talented minority lawyers to Pinellas and provide a support structure for those already here.

Flanagan, the group's first president, said racism isn't a factor in Pinellas courtrooms today, though he would like to see more black lawyers and judges in a system that still is overwhelmingly white.

"The bottom line is, this area probably would have attracted more black attorneys had the environment been a little more conducive," Flanagan said, noting a drain of black legal talent to other areas where minority attorneys are more numerous.

"It floors me," he said. "We have to keep some of that talent here."

In a profession such as the law, Flanagan said, it's important for lawyers, especially young attorneys, to be able to rely on and consult with other lawyers. It's an informal networking that does everything from allowing attorneys to consult with friends on thorny legal issues to referring business back and forth.

Flanagan said the year-old group also hopes to extend an outreach into area schools, starting with Gibbs High School in St. Petersburg, to help draw interested students to the law.

Pinellas County Judge Myra McNary, one of two black judges in the county, said, "We want to give kids positive role models. So often, a lot of their exposure to courts and the law is negative. We can show them that a lot of the people who work in the court system aren't just defendants, but people who do good things in the system."

Eventually, the group intends to offer legal scholarships and sponsor mock trial competitions.

"There traditionally hasn't been any group actively going out to pull these interested kids toward the law," Flanagan said. "We want to do that and a lot more."

Flanagan, 45, a Chicago native, moved to St. Petersburg in the early 1980s. A graduate of the Indiana University School of Law, Flanagan said he decided he didn't want to settle in middle America because "you saw too much corn and Klan."

His wife, Deborah, is a St. Petersburg native, and Flanagan followed love to the South, barely realizing just how white Pinellas' legal establishment was.

"When I first came down here, I had no idea what I was getting into," he said. "I didn't realize the history. I didn't realize how few black attorneys were here, or for that matter, just how few black professionals. I was shocked."

In that kind of environment, any attorney begins to feel alienated, Flanagan said.

"I'd go to a trial lawyers meeting, and I'd be the only black face," he said. "I got accustomed to it. For anyone coming right out of law school jumping into this environment, it's going to be a little scary and unsettling."

But Flanagan said he fit into white legal circles easily, mentoring with older white attorneys he said accepted him without question. He said racism isn't a problem. The problem is getting young attorneys, unsure of their footing, to step out of a shell.

"I developed close friendships with non-minorities," he said. "I was lucky enough to develop my network system through them."

Darryl Rouson, a black attorney who practices in St. Petersburg and is a member of the Minnis bar association, said he spoke recently to a partner in a large Pinellas law firm that had lost its lone black lawyer.

"He talked about the difficulty attracting other strong African-American attorneys because the perceived climate and environment are not conducive toward the African-American professional," Rouson said.

Rouson, who is the president of the St. Petersburg chapter of the NAACP, also hopes the group might make political inroads in helping black attorneys win judgeships, which he said are too often denied them.

Rouson, 46, left Pinellas to work in Chicago in 1989, returning in 1998.

"When I left, we had two black circuit judges, now we have two black county judges" out of 55 judges in the Pinellas-Pasco circuit, he said. "So I've told people that we've lost ground."

Flanagan, who will step down as Minnis president at the end of the month, recently applied for both a Pinellas-Pasco circuit judgeship and a county judgeship.

Florida lawmakers, spurred by area population growth, have created the new positions.

"We all hope this group gives us a sense of identity we didn't have before," Flanagan said, who said the group is open to minority and non-minority attorneys alike. "We want to help people practice law. And we want to draw people to the law. In the end, that helps the community, too."

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