Lawyers urged to do pro bono work

FORT LAUDERDALE | After receiving the St. Thomas More Society�s 24th annual Archbishop Edward A. McCarthy award, retired attorney James Zloch recalled his childhood days at St. Anthony Church, where he attended school and was an altar server.

�I have tremendous memories of St. Anthony�s Church,� said Zloch, 61. �Standing there in that church, tonight, was surreal. My faith was developed there and emboldened by the Dominican nuns and Msgr. John J. O�Looney.�

Zloch, one of the St. Thomas More Society�s founders, spoke at a dinner which followed the annual Red Mass at St. Anthony Church in downtown Fort Lauderdale. Zloch retired from Wicker, Smith law firm after he was diagnosed with vocal cord cancer in 2011, which he said he is beating thanks to a great team of doctors. He told those at the dinner how he and fellow attorney J. Loughren helped establish the Red Mass in Broward County in 1989, 64 years after the Broward Bar was established in 1925.

�Loughren and I decided to discuss the possibility with Archbishop McCarthy,� he said. �But Loughren said we needed a heavy-hitter. You and I are not heavy-hitters, however, your brother, William, is a federal judge. My brother agreed to help us out without hesitation.�

It all came together and the St. Thomas More Society of South Florida was formed, Zloch said. The first Red Mass took place Feb. 10, 1990 at St. Anthony�s, but it was not without controversy. Loughren was intrigued with Father Robert Drinan and he invited him to be the guest speaker at the first Red Mass dinner, he said.

�Father Drinan was a Jesuit priest and attorney, the perfect guest speaker, right?� said Zloch. �Well, not so fast. Drinan served as a Massachusetts Democratic congressman from 1971 to 1981 and he was an abortion rights supporter. Eventually, Pope John Paul II told him, you must step down from public office.�
Archbishop McCarthy said he would celebrate the Red Mass, but would not attend the dinner where Father Drinan would be speaking.

�What a powerful message,� said Zloch. �Because in honest conscience he could not sit down with Father Drinan nor listen to him speak. Archbishop McCarthy did not compromise his Catholic beliefs. He reminded us that we must be 100 percent committed to the Catholic faith and its teachings. He didn�t do the politically correct thing for an evening. Like St. Thomas More, the 15th-16th century lawyer and patron of the legal profession, he remained God�s servant first.�

John Seiler, a member of the society�s Board of Governors, introduced this year�s guest speaker, Judge Adalberto Jordan, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. He is a Cuban immigrant who went to the University of Miami on an academic scholarship. Through hard work he graduated from UM�s law school second in his class and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O�Connor from 1988 to 1989. He became a partner in the prestigious law firm Steele, Hector and Davis, worked in the U.S. Attorney�s office as chief of the appellate division and became a U.S. District Court judge before ascending to the appeals court.

�Judge Jordan, besides being a scholar, played baseball for the U,� said Seiler. �He still coaches soccer at St. Brendan High School, the school that he and his daughters graduated from. He gives back to the community not just from the bench, but from the sidelines. He lives the life of St. Thomas More.�

Judge Jordan urged lawyers at the dinner to consider pro-bono work, an area near and dear to his heart.

�What good is it if someone has faith my brothers, but not works,� he said. �We are, supposedly, doctors in the law, an area which most people find perplexing and impossible to traverse. A significant number of people can�t afford legal counsel and have to navigate the legal system without the benefit of trained lawyers. There are times when the sacred and the secular coincide and one of those times is pro-bono service.�

In his homily, Archbishop Thomas Wenski alluded to same-sex marriage and stressed the difference between man-made law and natural law. In recent decades, he said, American jurisprudence has moved away from its Judeo-Christian roots, which holds that truth is not constructed but received, to a radical autonomy in which truth is determined by one�s own will.

The Red Mass is a Mass of the Holy Spirit, so called because celebrants wear red vestments. It dates back to the 13th century when it officially opened the court of most European countries. The goal is to invoke the wisdom of the Holy Spirit on the legal profession.