C. Alan Lawson, Gov. Rick Scott's first Florida Supreme Court pick, was officially ushered in as the state's 86th justice Wednesday amid colleagues' attestations to his humility and humanitarianism.

Chief Justice Jorge Labarga told judges, lawmakers and other luminaries about the young Honduran girl whom Lawson and his wife, Julie, met during a service trip. The couple paid for the girl's needed surgeries and hosted her in their home for a year. Orange Circuit Judge Dan Traver said he learned Lawson wasn't “scared of putting in the work” in their running club, where he watched the jurist go from struggling to break an eight-minute mile to running a marathon.

“I don't really have any embarrassing Alan Lawson stories,” said the new justice's longtime friend, Second Circuit Chief Judge Jonathan Sjostrom. “I don't think there are any because Alan, from the time that I knew him as a law student, was a model of restraint.”