![]() He’s risen in leadership at a time when technology and increased competition from nonlawyers are rapidly transforming the legal services marketplace. Now 56, Abadin is a partner at Sedgwick LLP, an international litigation and business law firm, working at the Miami office with his wife, Kimberly Cook, who is managing partner.ĭescribed by many as a free-thinking adventurer who revels in pushing people out of their comfort zones, Abadin is ready to roll up his sleeves and work hard as president of The Florida Bar. ![]() And you could tell that when he was 14 years old.” “I remember those exact words when we met, and it was an amazing start to a lifelong friendship, and underscored all of the things I love about my friend Ray. It was 100 degrees in the shade in August, and I leaned on his shoulder, and he said to me, ‘I’m tired, too.’ He was a middle linebacker and I was a defensive tackle. “We met on the football field when we were freshmen at Columbus. “I don’t know that I’ve ever met a harder working guy,” said Clark, whose own attorney father paid his way through medical school. Clifford Clark III, a high-school friend and college roommate who’s now a plastic surgeon, didn’t last half the summer working with Abadin at that “ridiculously unpleasant job” on the dredge boat chipping paint. “And it would not be cool for me,” Abadin said. It would embarrass his cousin who got him the job. Enough of this!”Ī strong swimmer, he knew he could make it to shore. On a Sunday afternoon, Abadin squinted toward the sparkling coastline of Miami, where friends from Christopher Columbus High School no doubt were hanging out at South Beach having a good time.Ībadin went to the fantail and thought: “I’m jumping off this boat. ![]() But it was a month-long gig when they moved the boat from New Orleans Southwest Pass around the Florida peninsula en route to North Carolina. Usually, the work schedule was 10 days on and four off. ![]() Tasting Mississippi moonshine out of a Clorox bottle for the first time. Knowing not to sit in someone else’s chair at the table or a gruff bark would order him to move. Using a bathroom with no doors on the stalls. His Cuban-American parents in Miami couldn’t afford to send him away to college, so Abadin cobbled together tuition and living expenses with financial aid, a little scholarship money, and his own resourcefulness.Įxperiences gained working on the Langfitt : Bunking with good ol’ Southern boys who told wild stories. Army Corps of Engineers paid $15 an hour, big money for a kid working his way through college in the late ’70s. Soot and smoke swirled in the engine room of the Langfitt, where young Ramón Abadin sweated in 120-degree heat as a “wiper” cleaning behind boilers.Ībadin was glad to snag this job working on the 351-foot dredge boat at the mouth of the Mississippi River for two summers after freshman and sophomore years at Tulane University in New Orleans. ![]()
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