12 | The Summation
A Journey Through the Law An Interview with Judge Ross Goodman by Charlie Penrod
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udge Ross Goodman is retiring after a storied career in the law. He enrolled at Vassar College in 1979, graduated from the University of Florida Law School in 1985 and began practicing law shortly thereafter. In 2006, he was elected Circuit Judge in the First Judicial Circuit and has served in that capacity through 2021.
I met Judge Goodman in my role as a professor in the legal studies program at the University of West Florida. Judge Goodman has taught several courses in the program and is universally
respected and beloved by students and peers alike. Judge Goodman actively mentored me as I began my career here, and he showed me the same compassion and warmth he brings inside and outside the courtroom. Judge Goodman was kind enough to allow me to interview him for this article to celebrate his career. Q: Talk a little about your childhood and upbringing. Did you always want to have a career in the law, and if so, who motivated you to do so? RG: I was born and raised in Miami
and have three brothers. Our family emphasized four things: family,
religion, scouting and education. With three brothers, and all the competitiveness that entailed, sports were also very big. I wanted to be different things at different times. I never really settled on any one thing. When I left for college, I thought I would become a writer.
coming down the driveway. When it stopped, my son, then eight or nine years old, leapt out of the van, ran up to me, wrapped himself around my legs and said, “I heard you made the world a little better today!” It’s moments like that which make me love being a lawyer!
Q: What was your first job and how did that prepare you for the rest of your career? RG: At Vassar, I was in student
Q: How have you seen the practice of law evolve over the years? RG: I firmly believe the level of
government and met a college trustee who had a law firm in Washington, D.C. He recruited me to come to his firm as a paralegal. Since my major was philosophy, I was not qualified for any particular job, so this sounded like a good opportunity. I moved there and ended up working at the firm for three years. All the lawyers were former DoJ or former Supreme Court Law Clerks. It was intimidating at first, but many of the lawyers were extraordinarily kind to me and supportive of me. They were also very patient in teaching me my job. I learned an awful lot.
Back then, you didn’t need to be a lawyer to represent someone in an administrative matter, so the firm assigned me a case from an old client who had trouble selling a four-unit apartment complex. I was able to get the matter resolved and discovered that I really enjoyed the feeling of using work to help people. From there, I was hooked on the law. Q: What did you love about practicing law? RG: Simple answer: I loved
winning. I hated losing. To be more precise, I love the intellectual challenge, the constant learning, and the great feeling from achieving a good outcome for the client. Here’s a story: I settled a case I had been working on for years. On my way home, I called my wife to tell her the good news. I told her that I had helped make the world a little bit better for my clients that day. My wife’s phone was on speaker. I got home and saw my wife’s van
professionalism has risen, and the sense of collegiality has gained ground. Certainly, the law requires contests, battles and challenges. This can be done with a sense of purpose to serving the ends of justice or with a cut-throat attitude of winning at all costs. I believe I am seeing more of the former and less of the latter. Q: How has the rise of technology in the practice of law impacted the way in which cases are resolved? RG: The basics are still the same.
The methods may have changed. The speed at which lawyers operate has accelerated. Still, the facts and the law drive decision-making. The three rules of success still hold: “preparation, preparation and preparation.” The only difference is the tools are much handier and more accessible.
When I started, “cutting and pasting” was literally what you did to move things around in a draft. The most advanced “word processors” had one line of text on the screen at the time. Storage was on magnetic cards. Travel required a race to the pay phones when one got off a plane. The practice was much slower and more timeconsuming. Lawyers still work long hours, but their productivity has increased exponentially. On the other hand, a lawyer used to have to constantly stay abreast of the law. Now, a lawyer needs to also be an expert in technology and has to constantly learn new technologies.
