Attorney Bruce Rogow. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

Few in the legal community doubt Fort Lauderdale attorney Bruce Rogow's prowess and integrity. He cut his teeth as a civil rights lawyer in Mississippi in the 1960s, providing legal assistance to civil rights workers trying to end segregation in the deep South. He then dedicated himself to helping the poor, becoming assistant director of Greater Miami Legal Services Inc.

Since then, he's become a well-known First Amendment and constitutional lawyer, arguing 11 times before the U.S. Supreme Court — more than any other Florida attorney. He also has been counsel in scores of cases in the Florida Supreme Court and has argued more than 450 civil and criminal cases in federal and state appellate courts.

But Rogow is now in the limelight as the lawyer representing longtime Republican operative and staunch Donald Trump ally Roger Stone.

Stone, who was arrested in January at his Fort Lauderdale home as part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, faced charges of witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding and five counts of making false statements.

The path from civil rights attorney to defender of a Republican Party political operative is on its face an unconventional trajectory. But to the 79-year-old Rogow, there is little difference between those disparate clients.

“People are worthy of a defense, especially when their liberty is on the line,” he said.

Even as Stone faces a finding of contempt for allegedly breaking his gag order — imposed for an Instagram post featuring his trial judge next to apparent cross-hairs of a rifle scope — Rogow stands by him. He compares Stone's cultural radioactivity to another one of his high-profile controversial clients, Alan Dershowitz. The retired Harvard law professor was involved in a cadre of suits and countersuits stemming from claims related to former client Jeffery Epstein's sex trafficking investigation, including allegations linking Dershowitz to the underage sex scandal.

“Did Alan Dershowitz do anything that suggested to me that I should not represent him? The answer is absolutely not. The same thing with Roger Stone,” Rogow said.  ”Each, in their very distinctive ways, is a mensch — a good person.”

Rogow, who was a law professor for 40 years at Nova Southeastern University and later dean, admits he has a sort of attraction to outsized characters. During his 55 years as an attorney, he has represented rap artist Luther “Uncle Luke” Campbell of 2 Live Crew; Seminole Tribe Chief James Billie, a former alligator wrestler who built the Seminole Tribe into a major business enterprise; Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke; and Trump.

He also handled several cases for the president's loose network of companies, including some that arose from club membership and vendor disputes. In 2017, for example, he handled an appeal for Trump in litigation against a Trump-supporting Florida painter who won $300,000 in reimbursement and damages after the Trump Organization failed to pay for a golf course renovation. Rogow lost the appeal.

Despite his defense of controversial clients, Rogow is near-universally revered in Florida.

“He is the most strategic, wisest, thoughtful and ethical lawyer I have ever met in my entire career,” said Bobby Gilbert of Kopelowitz Ostrow Ferguson Weiselberg Gilbert in Coral Gables. Gilbert has worked closely with Rogow for more than 20 years, most notably on a series of class actions against banks for predatory overdraft fees that settled for a combined $1.2 billion.

Ira Leesfield, a Miami personal injury attorney and staple of Florida Democratic politics, had a similar take. “I just have a world of respect for him. Bruce is one of a kind,” he said.

Rogow's legacy is that of a steadfast purist — someone who believes that who you represent is not who you are, that every person, no matter how unpopular or vile, deserves a vigorous defense. And this is when the American Civil Liberties Union is under attack for defending hate groups and Harvard professor Ron Sullivan has been criticized for representing former Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein,

Intolerance

In Rogow's modest Fort Lauderdale office — for years he's shared a desk with his associate — a framed New York Times story dated June 12, 1972 and headlined “High Court Bars Any Jail Sentence Without Counsel,” chronicles the decision in Rogow's first U.S. Supreme Court case, Argersinger v. Hamlin, which held that defendants, even those facing misdemeanor charges, have the right to counsel when the crime they are charged with carries a penalty of possible imprisonment. His office is festooned with similar displays.

Rogow said he'll never forget the first time he rode the elevator at the Supreme Court, flanked by the U.S. solicitor general, deputy solicitor general and his mother, who raised him by herself.

“My mother is standing behind me and she grabs my hand,” Rogow said. “And to this assembled crowd she says, 'Brucie's hand is wet just like it was before his bar mitzvah.' ”

A framed multi-colored Native American dress represents his work for the Seminole Tribe of Florida in a lawsuit against the state when the tribe opened gaming on Indian reservations.

“ My daughter used to wear the dress when she was little,” Rogow said as he stooped to gaze at the frame.

He has long endured criticism for representing certain clients — even from those close to him. 

“My wife Jacquelyn didn't like it when I represented 2 Live Crew and what their songs represent: the misogyny, the language,” said Rogow, referring to his representation of the rap group in an obscenity case for its 1990 album “As Nasty As They Wanna Be” featuring track names such as “Me So Horny,” “The F*ck Shop” and “Dirty Nursery Rhymes.”

His wife, who was a member of the Audubon Society, also wasn't a fan of another client: Billie, who shot and killed an endangered Florida panther. Rogow said his wife, also an attorney, came around after she met Campbell and Billie.

But when he represented a group of Nazis arrested for violating a Miami Beach anti-swastika ordinance, one of the circuit judges told Rogow, who is Jewish, that he was a “disgrace to his race” and that the Nazis “should be lined up against the wall and shot.”

“I said, judge, that's what they want to do to us,” Rogow said.

Even now representing Stone, Rogow gets emails from his friends asking how he could represent the former Nixon aide.

Rogow, who evokes images of Abe Lincoln with his signature bow tie and chinstrap beard, is a staunch adherent to the First Amendment, which is how he came to represent Nazis and rappers. And from the perspective, he said there's little difference between Stone and Trump, or for that matter, David Duke and Uncle Luke.

“All of these [reactions] underscore intolerance, which is the greatest threat we have to a civil society,” he said. “Tolerance of others' ideas, tolerance of others' work; tolerance of others' beliefs is critical.”

Rogow insists he will continue to represent clients as long as they keep coming, and he hopes his practice, one that often had him representing the homeless and wealthy simultaneously, will be instructive to future generations as they wrestle with issues of free speech and discourse.

“Perhaps my past and present representation of unpopular people and causes can remind people that suppressing speech is more dangerous than listening to it.”

 

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