Harry Shorstein was the 4th Judicial Circuit’s new state attorney in 1991 when he first sat across the table from Janet Reno.
There often were meetings amongst Florida’s 20 state attorneys, he said. This one dealt with the budget or the Legislature — Shorstein can’t quite recall.
But he does remember sitting across from Reno.
“I knew who she was,” said Shorstein, “but I didn’t think she knew my name.”
By that time, Reno had been the 11th Circuit state attorney for more than a decade, after being the first woman to hold such a position in Florida.
Shorstein knew her reputation, which was that of an intelligent, brutally honest and ethical attorney.
“She was one of the most impressive women I have ever known,” said Shorstein. “If I were able to be a better prosecutor than I have been, I’d still fall short of Janet.”
Reno, 78, died last week due to complications from Parkinson’s disease.
The two shared state attorney roles for just two years before Reno continued her trailblazing path by being appointed the first female U.S. attorney general in 1993.
Shorstein said despite the inequities in size and resources of the offices, Reno always seemed to bring the state attorneys together when it came to legislative issues. Ideas to bring to lawmakers often wouldn’t get off the ground without her, he said.
“You had a hard time arguing with her,” said Shorstein, “because you knew she was smarter than you.”
Hank Coxe saw that type of person, too, in the 1970s when he first noticed Reno.
It’s a story he often tells involving, like Shorstein’s first encounter, sitting across the table from her.
Coxe at the time was a prosecutor in State Attorney Ed Austin’s office and had traveled with him to an Orlando convention for a committee meeting.
“I saw her and I tapped Ed on the shoulder and said, ‘Who is that? She’s pretty sharp,’” recalls Coxe, a director at the Bedell firm.
Austin told him it was Reno. Rest assured, Coxe said, Reno never tapped anyone on the shoulder asking who he was.
Shorstein and Coxe were two Northeast Florida attorneys who got to know Reno over the years.
For Shorstein, he went to several events in Washington, D.C., sometimes to talk juvenile crime programs or just catch-up and maybe glean some advice.
He remembers going to Jacksonville International Airport to meet Reno while she was serving as attorney general. Instead of a fancy private jetliner, she departed from what Shorstein calls a “pretty old prop plane” with security in tow.
Once in the car, Shorstein said he asked Ms. Reno — she’d always quickly tell him to call her Janet — why the prop plane? Couldn’t they afford anything nicer?
“’No, I don’t need a jet,’” Shorstein recalls her saying. “That was just who she was.”
It was the same mentality Reno had when she drove across Florida in her red Ford pickup truck campaigning to become governor in 2002. She fell short in the primary.
Coxe has had the honor of introducing her to area groups like The Jacksonville Bar Association for fundraisers and luncheons.
“There was nothing artificial about her,” said Coxe, “… She was so honest, so direct.”
When President Bill Clinton appointed her attorney general, Shorstein was both dismayed and happy.
Dismayed because losing Reno meant losing instant credibility and respect at a time when partisanship in Tallahassee was king. However, he said, “What a tremendous appointment for her and the country.”
While Shorstein and Coxe became acquainted with her, it was not on the level of Talbot “Sandy” D’Alemberte.
D’Alemberte, attorney, former state legislator and Florida State University president, got to know Reno in South Florida at the start of her legal career and the two became longtime friends and associates.
It was D’Alemberte who attracted her to Tallahassee in the early 1970s, where Reno served as staff director to the House Judiciary Committee and was a force in reorganizing the state court system.
In what D’Alemberte calls an unprecedented move for, the Senate invited her to sit in to explain those revisions.
Unprecedented, he said, because she was a female — it showed how highly regarded she was.
“She was wonderful,” said D’Alemberte. “She worked hard as hell.”
D’Alemberte suggested to then-Gov. Rubin Askew that Reno be considered for the Miami-Dade state attorney position in 1978 when Richard Gerstein resigned.
Later, D’Alemberte had wrapped up his time as president of the American Bar Association in 1991-92 when he suggested to a presidential transition committee Reno would be a good fit for the national position.
His suggestions worked out both times.
He and others who were close to Reno were able to spend some time with her last weekend before she passed away last Monday.
She was a trailblazer and role model in many ways, but not just for women.
“People idolized Janet,” D’Alemberte said. “They very much wanted to be strong and principled as her … I think she inspired male and female attorneys and she was a role model. “
Shorstein agrees. She had all the principles and substance, he said, of what good attorneys should strive to be
“God knows we need more like Janet now,” he said.
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