Miles McGrane President of The Florida bar: this bar president loves the law and the legal profession. Friends predict Miles McGrane will be hardworking and fun.

• Author: Blankenship, Gary
• Position: Cover Story - Interview

Around 1994, the Board of Directors of Legal Services of Greater Miami, Inc., decided it would be prudent to buy a building to house the agency's operations, instead of continuing to pay rent.

Such major expenditures need to be approached cautiously, so the board arranged for a fundraising audit, where experts interview potential donors to see if there is support for such a project. Longtime LSGMI Executive Director Marcia Cypen tells what happened:

"Miles McGrane was one of the first people we had the auditor contact," she recalled. "She [the auditor] nearly fell off her chair when he said, of course he would support the campaign, and he would pledge $10,000 a year for 10 years.

"That became the lead gift in our campaign [the one fundraisers can tout when approaching other potential donors], and we raised enough money for the building."

But Miles A. McGrane III, who on June 27 became the president of The Florida Bar, has done more for the program than just give it money. He served on the LSGMI board from 1984 through 1990, including the last two years as president, and he continues to help out when he can.

"He took it very seriously and was willing to take on responsibility for leadership," Cypen said. "When he's engaged, he's engaged. If he's doing something, he does it.

"He's always held us close to his heart, he's always been there when I called and needed anything related to legal services," she added.

Miles McGrane knows from firsthand experience how such services can be needed.

McGrane was born in October 1947, in Troy, New York, the son of Miles McGrane, Jr., a lawyer, and Marrie, a homemaker. He was the third of four children (with two older sisters, one of whom is deceased, and a younger brother).

What should have been the aU-American childhood growing up in the 1950s changed when his father died of Guillain-Barre Syndrome when his namesake, Miles III, was 7.

"My father was a lawyer, and I think because he died at such an early age--he was 42 and I was 7--my whole life has been designed on what he would have wanted, what would have made him proud," McGrane said. "I never went through that period of life where I was smarter than he was. It's that drive, that expectation. Would he be proud of this? Would he think I'm doing well? It's an unfulfilled relationship."

Three years later, his mother moved the family to Hollywood, Florida. A year later, McGrane's maternal grandmother moved down and bought a house, and the family moved in with her. That relocation allowed his mother to work as a sales rep at a furniture store. McGrane began the pattern of his youth--working wherever he could.

"Finances were such that I had to work; I had to support myself," he said. "If I needed clothes, I had to buy them for myself.".

Of Paper Routes and Grocery Bags

It began in junior high with a Hollywood Sun-Tattler paper route with 105 customers (McGrane can still recall the route) and during the summer, he added a morning Miami Herald route.

While attending South Broward High School, McGrane augmented his paper route income by working at the Yum Yum Castle, closing it down on Friday nights, cleaning the milkshake machines, and then working Saturdays cleaning up around the fast food restaurant.

Next he landed a job that has reached mythical status in the McGrane family, working at Russell's Market, a family-owned grocery store. The owners included the parents of Ft. Lauderdale attorney Bill Spencer, who also worked there and went on to serve on the Bar Board of Governors with McGrane.

"A long-standing memory is Miles as a bagger and checkout guy at Russell's Market," Spencer said. He adds with a laugh that McGrane was, "Obviously a hardworking, industrious, future president of The Florida Bar."

More seriously, he added that the dedication and hard work McGrane showed there were evident later in his Board of Governors work.

McGrane said the job was an important part of his youth.

"I was a cashier, worked in the meat department, and worked in the produce market," he recalled. "I did everything. They delivered, so I'd deliver groceries. It was a job that no longer exists. I don't think you can get jobs like that anymore. It taught me real responsibility."

After high school, McGrane enrolled at Broward Junior College where the big question for him was whether he could afford the $60-per-trimester tuition, along with books and other costs. Between working and financial concerns, it took him two and a half years to finish there, and then he enrolled at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.

He couldn't afford the $90 tuition per trimester and live in the dorms, so he continued to live at home and work were he could, including a summer job in Boston, continuing at Russell's Market, and being a film projectionist for the university. Even though he also took two and a half years to finish at FAU, and despite all the work, McGrane was approaching his senior year with out enough money.

"Then I learned that the president of the student government received a full-paid scholarship," McGrane said.

He had no experience running for office or with student government, but a friend noted that the FAU School of Education students rarely voted in student government elections. By canvassing those students in the parking lot McGrane and his friends convinced them to vote. McGrane won by 11 votes.

"It was very interesting being elected head of student government," he recalled. "! didn't know what to expect and then three days after the election, Kent State happened [on May 4, 1970, National Guardsman fired on students protesting the Vietnam War, killing four and wounding nine]. Students [including the student senate] were screaming, 'We've got to shut down the school!'"

Demands were also made to lower flags to half staff.

McGrane met with FAU President Dr. Kenneth R. Williams to discuss the situation, mindful that the student body also included veterans and older students who wanted to continue with their classes.

The compromise they worked out allowed classes to stay open, but students who decided to skip them would not be punished. And McGrane said he noted that while the university could lower its own flag, it had no authority over the state and national flags.

"The senate gave me trouble the whole year until one day I realized enough of them had dropped out of school to leave them without a quorum. So I had my attorney general [future attorney Joe Vassallo] go in and shut down the senate," he said.

"Under his direction, I set up the judicial system at FAU," Vassallo recalled. "It had a regular hearing tribunal and an appellate tribunal."

Nuts and Bolts

He also said McGrane hasn't changed much since those days, at least in his approach to issues and problems.

"He's a nuts-and-bolts type of guy. He gets right down to business, he's down to earth," Vassallo said.

"He's always been a guy who looked ahead and works toward a goal," said Delbert "Smoky" Stover, who met McGrane at FAU. Although a quarter of a century older than McGrane, they became close through a mutual friend.

When McGrane finished FAU, his constant problem remained.

"I knew I wanted to go to law school from the time I was seven," he said. "The question was: Could I get in one and pay for it?

"When I graduated from FAU, I still had no money. I was talking with Dr. Williams, and he suggested I stay for another year and be assistant director of financial aid."

Williams added if McGrane took classes, he could live in the dorms.

McGrane took the job, earning $9,000 and saving most of it. Meanwhile, Vassallo went to the Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama, and suggested McGrane apply there.

Law School and Perseverance

Vassallo introduced him to Cumberland's dean of admissions, and "I interviewed with the dean and I think Joe worked on him for the rest of the day. With the help of Joe, I sort of talked my way into law school."

On his first day there, he met Herman Russomanno, from Miami, who went on to become the 2000-01 Florida Bar president.

"Law school I enjoyed, but it was a grind," McGrane said. "Ninety percent of the battle is perseverance, doing those...