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April 1, 2008 Jan Pudlow Senior Editor Regular News Miami’s Zack in line for ABA presidency Senior EditorAsk Steve Zack why he wanted to become a lawyer 36 years ago and why he now wants to be president of the ABA.Both answers emerge from the same frightening night when he was a 14-year-old boy fleeing Cuba in 1961, separated from his family, locked in a dark, windowless room, searched, and placed under house arrest.Zack — a Miami civil trial lawyer and former Florida Bar president — said he publicly told the harrowing story for the first time in a speech at the ABA Midyear Meeting in February.The occasion was his nomination by Ben Hill (another former Florida Bar president),and now Zack is running unopposed as president-elect designate of the ABA. The actual election occurs at the ABA’s Midyear Meeting in February 2009, and Zack is expected to officially become president-elect in August 2009.“I knew I wanted to be a lawyer because I never again wanted to feel so helpless, so ignorant of my rights, and I realized how important it was to be protected by the law,” explained Zack, who was born in Detroit and moved with his Cuban mother and Jewish father back to Cuba when he was a two-week-old infant.“I also learned from that evening why today I want to be president of the American Bar Association. Because I want to have the opportunity to speak on behalf of our association to the millions of people around the world who are locked in dark, windowless rooms of injustice, poverty, and discrimination — and let them know that we are here and that we care.”A couple of years earlier, when Zack ran in a contested election for chair of the ABA House of Delegates, he had told his colleagues about arriving in America and how selling footwear at Snappy’s Shoe Store taught him the people skills necessary for that job akin to vice president of the ABA, heading the unicameral legislature that sets policy.But there was no laughter this year, when he described “one of the most difficult, if not the most difficult, night in my life.”Earlier that day, the military took over the family business and the Zack family went to the airport, hoping to flee Castro’s regime.Enduring insults from the guards, people were forced to shed wedding rings and wristwatches before being seated in the “fishbowl,” a glass room where people sat huddled against each other, some crying and some silently dazed. When their names were called, Zack, his mother, his brother, and his sister were escorted out of the room.“We turned around to see my father, but he had left. We were then taken into separate windowless rooms where we were questioned and searched. This was long before I ever heard of the words ‘habeas corpus,’ but I knew what was happening was just wrong. The only thing I didn’t know is whether anybody cared and whether there was anybody who would do anything about it,” Zack said.“You might think that your first thought is of yourself when something like this happens, but frankly you wonder whether you will ever see your family again and what is happening to them, and, finally, what will happen to you.“The next morning, the door of this windowless, dark room was unlocked, and I was again joined by my family, and we were taken to the G2 headquarters downtown. G2 is the Cuban version of the KGB. We had been held in the G2 offices at the airport the night before.“When we arrived downtown, my father was waiting there with what was left of the American interest section of the American Embassy. We were released to their custody and put under house arrest for two weeks and finally allowed to come to the United States.”Quoting his grandfather, twice a refugee — from Russia to Cuba and then from Cuba to the United States — Zack exclaimed: “What a country! What a country!”While his grandfather could not speak English well, that trio of words “meant that he knew how fortunate he was to enjoy the blessings of liberty and freedom.. . . He knew that he would never be a refugee again when he came to the United States, because if the United States failed, there would be no place to go.”America has been a place of prosperity for Zack — a 60-year-old partner at the Miami firm of Boies, Schiller, and Flexner, where he now practices with another former Florida Bar president, James Fox Miller.“The fact that Steve Zack will be president of the American Bar Association is on the one hand a miracle because he is not in the mold of any other prior ABA president and, on the other hand, it is perfectly predictable,” Miller said. “If Steve sets out to do something, he almost always gets it done. He will do a great job and he will do it with great charm and aplomb. There is no one better on his feet and he has the perfect skill set to be an outstanding ambassador for the legal profession both nationally and internationally.”Among the highlights of Zack’s long, impressive resume are serving as general counsel to former Gov. Bob Graham, representing former Vice President Al Gore in Gore v. Bush, and representing the Florida Senate in the State of Florida congressional redistricting lawsuit.“The American Bar Association’s commitment to ‘pursuing liberty and defending justice’ has never been more important,” Zack said. “We are the informed and authoritative voice, and often the only strong and organized defense, against the encroachment upon fundamental legal rights and liberties by the expedient winds of the moment.. . . “We never know what the crisis of the moment will be, but every president has had to be prepared to respond on our behalf, and has done so effectively.”When Zack is sworn in as president of the ABA in 2010, he will become the fifth Florida Bar member to hold that post after the late Chesterfield Smith, Wm. Reece Smith, Sandy D’Alemberte, and Martha Barnett. Miami’s Zack in line for ABA presidency read more