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Alumni Success
ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: JIM SHORE
With dedication to serving his community and an unflappable work ethic, Jim Shore’s path to becoming general counsel for the Seminole Tribe of Florida is as uncommon as it is inspirational. In 2022, Stetson University College of Law launched a new scholarship named in Shore’s honor. The Jim Shore Scholarship for the Seminole Tribe of Florida Endowment will encourage and support members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida to pursue a legal education at Stetson Law. It will be available to 1L, 2L, or 3L students in the full-time or part-time J.D. program who are members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Recipients must be in good academic standing and financial need will be a key consideration. “The continued success of the Seminole Tribe of Florida depends on the education of future generations of its members,” Shore said. “We hope Stetson University College of Law becomes an important partner in attracting, educating, and preparing Seminole students to become attorneys. Thank you for your efforts on our behalf.” Jim Shore was born in 1945 in an area just northwest of Lake Okeechobee, where his family raised cattle and lived in chickees with thatched roofs and no indoor plumbing. Despite the challenge of being born blind in one eye, he graduated from Okeechobee High School in 1963 and worked in construction, as a mechanic, and even as a cowboy. In 1970, an auto accident sent shards of glass into his eyes, resulting in complete blindness. Without the ability to see, he needed to start over with a new career direction; Shore would joke that he couldn’t make a living riding a horse. He turned to education, first earning his B.A. in history from Stetson University’s DeLand campus in 1976. After hearing his classmates talk about going on to study law at the University’s Gulfport law school campus, he applied and was accepted. His dedication to his legal studies while at Stetson Law became the stuff of legend. The St. Petersburg Times even wrote about his unique method of studying law by taping class lectures on a small reel-to-reel, then listening to the tape for up to seven hours a day before recording his own notes on additional tapes. His legal colleagues say that experience left him with an uncanny ability to hear what’s said in negotiations – as well as what’s not said. A few days before graduating from Stetson Law, he slipped on wet pavement and broke his ankle – and attended the ceremony with help from a wheelchair. With his family by his side, he became the first Seminole to earn a law degree. After passing the bar, he worked as deputy counsel for the then3,000-member Seminole Tribe of Florida in 1981. A year later, he became general counsel for the tribe, now 4,200 strong, a role he has held ever since.
He helped form the Seminole Police Department and effectively negotiated a series of water use challenges between the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the state, and the federal government. His work has greatly improved the health and welfare of the Seminole people by helping to diversify tribe enterprises, including negotiations between the tribe and the state to secure the 2007 gaming agreement that allowed for Las Vegas-style gaming at the tribe’s six Florida casinos. He also shepherded the tribe’s monumental acquisition of the Hard Rock hotel, restaurant, and casino chain.
In 2020, he won the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment and Resources Government Attorney of the Year award for his legal work and achievements in the areas of the environment, energy, and natural resources. He continues to focus on Everglades restoration and Lake Okeechobee management within the Brighton Reservation, which now encompasses the area where he grew up, and the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation. In a video introducing Shore, attorney Michelle Diffenderfer, president of Florida-based firm Lewis, Longman & Walker, who has worked with Shore for years, lauded him for his “incredible listening skills and a penchant for knowing just what to do at the right time.” He also received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Florida State University in 2005 and was inducted into Stetson Law’s Hall of Fame in 2010.
-Jim Shore, B.A. ’76, J.D. ’80
PASSION FOR JUSTICE LANDS ALUMNA KEY ROLE
BY KATE BRADSHAW
Hanna Raissa Ibañez, J.D. ’16, has always been passionate about standing up for others. It is what compelled her to study law, advocate for the underserved, and, recently, join the White House’s Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board. “I remember always being really fired up,” she said. “I could always sense when there was a power dynamic that was unfair.” Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, she moved to Miami with her family as a child. Upon graduating from Simmons University in Boston, she said, law school called. She toured Harvard, Duke, and others, but it was Stetson Law that stood out after she saw the Trial Team in action.
“There was just something about knowing how to run a courtroom and operating in that space that called to me,” she said. Faculty members who interacted with her recognized her passion from her early days on campus. “From her initial classroom comments in criminal law on, it was clear she would excel in social justice advocacy,” said Professor Ellen Podgor. She held leadership positions in the National Organization for Women and was active in the Lambda Legal Society. Through her participation in the Homeless Advocacy Externship, she demonstrated a deep commitment to advocacy on behalf of the homeless. She brought her passion to the Pinellas County Public Defender’s Office, first through pro bono as a student, then as an attorney on staff. She is now a senior staff attorney on the Tenant Defense Project for Inner City Law Center, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit providing free legal services to the city’s most vulnerable. A colleague connected her to the compliance board through a member of the U.S. Congress. After an 18-month vetting process, she was appointed. The board aims to ensure all federal facilities comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Ibañez hopes her story shows students aspiring to fight on behalf of the vulnerable that there is a pathway to effectively doing so at Stetson Law, where the community will welcome their passion for making a difference through advocacy. “There’s a place for you at Stetson,” she said.
ALUMNA RHEA LAW NAMED PRESIDENT OF USF
Following decades of passionate community involvement, Stetson Law alumna Rhea Law, J.D. ’79, was named president of the University of South Florida in March of 2022. USF’s Board of Governors unanimously voted to confirm Law, who is also a USF alumna. For Law, it is the culmination of dedicated work in the areas of higher education, economic development, and government throughout the Tampa Bay region, including Stetson, where Law was appointed to the Board of Trustees of Stetson University in 2019 and served two terms as a member of the Board of Overseers beginning in 2007. She began her legal career began with Fowler White Boggs, PA, where she worked her way up to becoming the first female president and CEO of a large Florida law firm in 2001. She also shepherded the merger between Fowler and Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, PC. Her professional and nonprofit involvement spans dozens of organizations, including: the American Bar Association; Enterprise Florida, Inc.; Leadership Council on Legal Diversity; Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce; Leadership Tampa; Tampa Bay Metro; and Tampa Bay Partnership. Law was named one of the top five women business leaders in Florida by the Commonwealth Institute in June 2008, one of Florida's most influential people by Florida Trend magazine and Businesswoman of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal in 2004. Law was instrumental in the law school's Cornerstone fundraising campaign.
BOOK AWARD SPONSORS 2021-2022
Stetson University College of Law would like to recognize and thank the following law firms for sponsoring a Book Award during the 20212022 school year. These awards are much appreciated by the students, and by the law school, as they demonstrate these firms’ belief in our future and in the lawyers of tomorrow. Banker Lopez Gassler, P.A. – Trial Advocacy Boss Law – Real Property Bush Ross, P.A. – Bankruptcy Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig, LLC – Insurance Cole, Scott, & Kissane P.A. – Trial Advocacy Diaco Law – Trial Advocacy
DSK Law Group (de Beaubien Simmons Knight
Mantzaris Neal) – Contracts Groelle & Salmon, P.A. – Civil Procedure Killgore Pearlman Semanie & Squires P.A. – Professional Responsibility Latham, Luna, Edeen & Beaudine, LLP – Trial Advocacy Maney | Gordon | Zeller, P.A. – Evidence Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, LLP – Real Property Tannenbaum Lemole & Kleinberg – Professional Responsibility Tracy Gunn Appellate Practice, P.A. – Appellate Practice and Advocacy (Civil) 21
