Fourth Circuit Judge Gary Wilkinson is a bit of an outcast in his family. The lone attorney surrounded by five generations of doctors and nurses.
His father was founding medical director at Nemours Children’s Clinic. His grandfather and great-grandfather were doctors.
His brother, younger sister and her husband are doctors, as is his brother’s son.
And his wife and daughter are nurses.
Then there’s Wilkinson. A shark among saviors.
He’s put up with lawyer jokes for years. A lot of them.
But, family members soon realized the benefit of having a lawyer around: being able to ask legal questions. “Which they do,” Wilkinson said, with a laugh.
The roots to his career began to spread at Wolfson High School, where he was a member of the debate team and student government.
Wanting to be a judge dates back to Wilkinson’s time in the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps.
He began applying for judgeships in 2011, after more than 20 years in private practice.
His name was advanced several times by the 4th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission to Gov. Rick Scott.
Finally, on the fifth time, Wilkinson got the call from the governor.
And he accidentally blocked it.
Starting a career and a new life
Wolfson was an early training ground to build several skills needed to be a good lawyer.
Being a member of the debate team drove Wilkinson’s passion for advocacy.
As part of student government — where he was speaker of the house — he learned how to compromise and get things done.
After two years at Oxford College of Emory University in Georgia, his parents encouraged Wilkinson to finish his undergraduate studies somewhere other than the South so he could get a different perspective.
He chose the University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League school his grandfather attended.
It was a dramatically different experience attending the school in West Philadelphia versus his two years in the small town of Oxford, Ga.
He didn’t know anyone at Penn. “I just literally started from scratch,” he said.
He returned to Georgia to attend Emory University School of Law, which he was steered to by attorney William Adams III, one of his father’s best friends.
Adams told Wilkinson to go to law school to learn how to think like a lawyer.
But he found something other than a career at Emory. It’s where he met his wife, Karen, who was getting her master’s in nursing.
His brother’s best friend was dating Karen’s roommate. Wilkinson said he and future wife “hit it off immediately.”
They went to her apartment to watch the Florida-Georgia football game. “I wasn’t interested in the game,” he said. “I was interested in her.”
A week later they had their first date. Today, they have two adult children — Jennifer, an orthopedic nurse, and Daniel, a U.S. Navy flight officer.
Knocked down, getting back up
After graduating from law school in 1985, Wilkinson clerked for Adams until he started as a JAG. Wilkinson said he learned a lot about being a lawyer in those months with Adams.
Before that time, he didn’t have real clients. He was just reading about cases.
With Adams, he had big clients and major legal issues to research. He learned to see the big picture, as well as to understand the minutia and details that make up that big picture.
After three years with the Army, Wilkinson returned to Jacksonville in 1989 and joined the business litigation firm of Martin, Ade, Birchfield & Mickler.
A decade later, he shared space in Riverplace Tower with Bledsoe Schmidt and Lippes.
Instead of joining as a partner, though, he stayed a solo practitioner and received conflict referrals from the firm.
“It was brilliant on their part,” Wilkinson said. “I never had a moment where I wasn’t busy.”
After seven years, he became a partner at Bledsoe, Jacobson, Schmidt, Wright, Wilkinson and Sussman.
His attention turned toward becoming a judge in 2011. To him, it was another form of service and a different kind of lawyering.
At times, the four-year process to secure a judgeship was very stressful, he said.
“You’re constantly thinking about it, constantly focusing on it, constantly asking for help, constantly preparing for interviews,” he said.
The times he made the list of finalists given to the governor, he knew if he got a call from Scott’s general counsel, he didn’t get the job.
Soon, he had seen that number enough times to memorize it.
“If I saw (area code) 850, I knew before I answered it that I didn’t get it,” he said.
There were times he asked himself why he kept going through the process. He loved being a lawyer and the consistent failure to get selected was wearing on him and his family, he said.
But his children were watching. And he had always told them, “You’re going to get knocked down. If you really want it, don’t give in.”
Listening to his own advice, though, was growing tiresome — until Aug. 18.
Hanging up on the governor
Wilkinson was working with law partner James Bledsoe when his cellphone rang. He told Bledsoe: “That’s the right number.”
Then the inconceivable happened. Wilkinson nervously swiped the phone screen the wrong way and blocked Scott’s from coming through.
“I effectively hung up on the guy,” he said.
Wilkinson said Bledsoe yelled at him and he yelled at Bledsoe while frantically trying to call Scott back from his cellphone.
While on hold with the governor’s office, someone called his name from the hallway. Scott was on the law office’s line.
Wilkinson immediately grabbed the line and didn’t even say hello. Instead he began explaining to Scott what had happened. The governor’s answer was simply: “Oh, it happens.”
And then he told Wilkinson he had selected him to be a circuit judge, filling a seat left vacant by the retiring Judge David Wiggins. (Wilkinson was ultimately assigned to the civil division in Clay County.)
Typically, the governor asks the new judge to hold back telling the news until the other finalists are notified and a news release is sent out.
Wilkinson doesn’t remember if Scott asked him to hold back but he does remember Bledsoe immediately going up and down the halls at the firm telling everyone the news.
Wilkinson wanted to share the news with his family, but he couldn’t reach anyone on the phone.
His wife and daughter were at work and his son was in class at flight school.
Wilkinson said he sent out a massive text. That had to do until he got home and his wife gave him a “big hug that night in her scrubs.”
Much better than another lawyer joke.
@editormarilyn
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