After years of studying and preparation, this was it.
The Florida Bar exam — the mother lode of all tests — was behind them.
Now, it was just a matter of 10 young professionals raising their right hand and reciting an oath administered by U.S. Middle District Judge Timothy Corrigan.
RELATED STORY: Local attorneys share memories from the day they were sworn in.
Some kept a serious face. Others allowed a smile. But when it was all done, they had made it.
They were attorneys.
“I’ve wanted to do this since I was little,” said Brittani Melvin.
“Always,” said her smiling father, Patrick Dalmas.
Melvin moved from Chicago to attend Florida Coastal School of Law. It’s where her father originally came from before moving to Jacksonville. It was here where she pursued her dream of practicing public interest law to help people.
Dalmas said the family always had a strong sense of helping others through public union leadership and law.
“It’s something she’s always wanted,” he said. “She’s going to be great.”
Not far away, Jerrod Williams is posing for pictures with his family near the seal of the U.S. Middle District Court.
His wife and youngest son are here along with his parents and extended family.
“It’s pretty big, especially for my family,” he said.
He’s the first one in his family to graduate from college, let alone become an attorney.
Williams doesn’t know how he feels yet, he said shortly after Friday’s ceremony at the Bryan Simpson U.S. Courthouse concluded.
The whole thing was kind of surreal, he supposed.
“It’s probably the biggest accomplishment I’ve done in my life,” he said.
That’s saying something — Williams is a combat veteran, a transportation officer in the Army who served 15 months in Iraq.
Going through law school and taking the Bar exam “is like nothing else,” he said.
There isn’t a book to read or magic potion to take to understand what it’s like. You just have to do it to understand, he said.
“I think he enjoyed the experience,” said Williams’ father, Ray. “Until he started studying for the Bar … then maybe he realized what he was getting into.”
But all turned out well, said Ray Williams.
And on the day his son took the oath, there might have been a little moisture in Ray Williams’ eyes. Probably just sinuses, though, he joked.
Alexis Gainey had already shed the tears that came with law school and the Bar exam.
It was a hectic first year, she said, with ups and downs that came with determining the best ways to study. The anxiety got to her until she figured it out.
“There were a lot of tears,” she said.
Too many, said her fiancé, Brandon Lezama.
He and Gainey’s mentor, Chardae Smallwood, watched Gainey get sworn-in Friday.
There weren’t tears this time. Just smiles and a sense of relief, she said.
Lezama jokingly agreed.
“No more tears, no more crying and I get to see someone come out of the Batcave every once in a while,” he said.
It was a smaller group than usual, with just 10 people being sworn in — numbers that reflected the 58.4 percent passage rate for those who took the Bar exam in February.
That didn’t make it any less special for some of the state’s newest attorneys.
@writerchapman
(904) 356-2466