Rotarian J.B. Spence - We Will Miss You!
Our dear friend and good Rotarian, famed lawyer J.B. Spence, known as the "Dean of Torts" for his scores of million-dollar-plus verdicts, died Saturday, November 26 at Doctors Hospital, near his home in Coral Gables. He was 89.
A 2010 Trial Lawyer Hall of Fame inductee, and “semi-retired’’ from The Cochran Firm, J.B. was a specialist in personal injury, medical malpractice and wrongful death cases, Spence practiced law in Miami for 60 years. He won the first seven-figure jury award in Florida for the death of a child: $1.8 million in 1970, to the parents of a 15-year-old boy killed when a cargo plane crashed into an auto-body shop near Miami International Airport. On hearing the verdict, Spence fainted.
Born on March 31, 1922, in Hot Springs, Ar., Spence attended night school at Lindsay Hopkins Technical Education Center after serving in the U.S. Navy, then the University of Miami Law School, where he later taught. He wrote two books: Opening and Closing Arguments: The Law in Florida (Harrison Co., 1980) and The Life of a Trial Lawyer (Trafford Publishing, 2006).
For more than 20 years, Spence led the firm of Spence, Payne & Masington, which he founded in 1967 with Roland “Buddy” Payne Jr. The firm disbanded in 1995.
In addition to his daughter, Spence, one-time president of both the Dade County Bar Association and the Academy of Florida Trial Lawyers, is survived by sons Mark Spence and Gary Spence, of Miami, and John Spence, of Gainesville.
A celebration of his life will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, December 3rd at First United Methodist Church of Coral Gables.
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