Daily Record Financial News &
Monday, May 4, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 121 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Towers built legacy of family
Attorney commanded the room with strong presence By Marilyn Young Editor Three or four weeks before Charlie Towers died, he was celebrating at the wedding of one of his grandchildren. He was full of joy, said Rogers Towers shareholder T.R. Hainline, and happy to be there. At 91, Towers was still going strong into the night. “I think my last conversation with him was at 10 o’clock that evening, with a party going on around him,” Hainline recalled.
Towers died Thursday, leaving a decades-long legacy of love for his family, his law firm and his community. Once one of the city’s most powerful political and legal titans, Towers became one of its most revered legends. He ran in the circles alongside the city’s powerbrokers, including former Mayor Haydon Burns, but also was dedicated to the less fortunate. He was a mainstay in groups such as The Salvation Army, the Rotary Club of Jacksonville and
the United Way of Northeast Florida. And he was a man of strong faith, serving in leadership roles at First Presbyterian Church and helping with the Rev. Billy Graham’s 2000 crusade in Jacksonville. The Towers name in the firm originated with his father, but it was the younger Towers who built the business into one of Jacksonville’s iconic law practices. Fred Franklin, the firm’s managing director, called him “the
most important figure in the 110 years of the law firm.” Towers mentored generations of younger lawyers, many of whom started at the firm right out of law school and never left because of the family atmosphere he fostered.
Generous in soul, credit
Chris Hazelip is one of those lifers, as he calls it. He clerked at the firm during law school in 1983 and started Towers... Continued Page A-11
Web.com exceeds earnings forecast
All of the competitors in the seventh annual Kids Triathlon got to see themselves cross the finish line on the giant video screens at EverBank Field on Saturday. About 2,000 children, ages 5-10 from 42 area schools participated. See more photos on Page A-9.
Photo by Fran Ruchalski
A chance to make the big screen
Fundraising ban for judges upheld U.S. Supreme Court affirms state ruling
By Max Marbut Staff Writer Judges are not politicians. That’s the main point of the 5-4 majority opinion from the U.S. Supreme Court in Williams-Yulee v. Florida Bar that upheld the state’s prohibition of judges personally raising money to campaign for a seat on the bench. Chief Justice John Roberts, delivering the majority opinion last week, wrote that when it comes to judges, First Amendment rights do not apply to asking for campaign contributions. “A State may assure its people that
Public
judges will apply the law without fear or favor – and without having personally asked anyone for money,” Roberts wrote. Attorney Lanell Williams-Yulee in 2009 ran for a Hillsborough County judgeship. As part of her campaign, she signed a letter that was posted on her website and distributed via a mass mailing that asked for contributions needed to launch the campaign. Yulee was defeated in the primary election and then the Florida Bar said the letter violated Canon 7C(1) of the Florida Code of Judicial Conduct, which bans direct solicitations. However, the rule allows state judicial candidates and incumbents to organize
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committees to raise funds, to direct the committees toward potential donors, see who gave money and send “thank-you” notes to contributors. After she was reprimanded and fined, Yulee filed suit against the Florida Bar, contending the state’s prohibition violated her First Amendment right of free speech. The state Supreme Court ruled that personal solicitation of campaign funds by a judicial candidate “raises an appearance of impropriety and calls into question, in the public’s mind, the judge’s impartiality.” In a decision last week, the court affirmed the action of the Bar and its confirmation
After consistently disappointing investors throughout the second half of 2014, Web.com Group Inc. started 2015 with earnings that exceeded expectations. Jacksonville-based Web.com reported adjusted first-quarter earnings of 56 cents a share, which was lower than 2014 firstquarter earnings of 61 cents but higher than the company’s forecast of 53 cents to 55 cents. Adjusted revenue of $137.7 million also exceeded the company’s forecast of $134.5 million to $136.5 million. “As expected, during the first quarter we successfully stabilized our revenue and returned to growth as the initiatives we have outlined on recent calls are positively impacting our results,” CEO David Brown said in a conference call with analysts. “I am confident the improvements we have made and will continue to make position us well to generate sequential revenue growth each quarter in 2015 and to deliver mid-single-digit year-over-year revenue growth in the first quarter of 2016,” he said. Web.com, which provides website development services for businesses, exceeded forecasts in part because of “do-it-yourself” products that sold better than the company expected, Brown said. The company also worked on reducing customer “churn,” or customers leaving the company, he said. The churn rate was 1 percent in the first quarter. Web.com’s total net subscribers grew by about 19,000 during the quarter to 3.295 million.
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