Miami-based Third District Court of Appeal Judge Vance E. Salter announced on Friday that he will retire Aug. 31 after 13 years on the appellate bench.

Salter, 72, plans to take a year off "to sort out his life" in retirement, while tentatively visiting three of his adult children who live throughout the country, subject to limitations imposed by the coronavirus pandemic. He also plans to help with the care of his adult son, who has Down syndrome and lives at home with Salter and his wife.

Salter is grateful for having had the opportunity to serve as a judge on the Third DCA.

"What a privilege and wonderful experience it's been," he said. "It has been the high point of 44 years to be able to work those 13 years on the court. And I had wonderful experiences as a practicing lawyer."

Due to his father's military service, Salter, born in California, moved extensively throughout his childhood. One of the most memorable places in which his family resided was Huntsville, Alabama, the location of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency, where German ballistic rocket scientists worked.

Salter would go on to graduate from Brown University, enlist in the U.S. Army and then attend the University of Virginia School of Law, from which he graduated in 1976. Over the next 30 years, he worked in private practice, including at Steel Hector & Davis, where he became a partner five years after graduating law school.

During his private-practice career, Salter gained recognition for his pro bono work, including domestic violence cases. He received the top "pro bono publico" awards from the Florida Supreme Court and the American Bar Association. Pope John Paul II also granted Salter knighthood in the Order of St. Gregory the Great for his charitable services.

Salter rose to the Third DCA in 2007 after former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to the court to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge John G. Fletcher. He immediately helped transition the court from a paper-based system to electronic filing and docketing. That technological move has been essential to the continuation of the work of the court amid the coronavirus social-distancing lockdown.

"Imagine if there were still paper files and rolling carts from one judge to the clerk's office then to the next judge, and writing in pencil our rulings on paper on motions," Salter said. "If we were still doing that with paper docketing coming from the lawyers in this time of COVID-19? What makes remote work possible and Zoom possible is the ability to have the electronic documents sent to the judges from the Third DCA to enable us to work from home."

Retired judge Frank Shepherd worked with Salter in ruling on hundreds of cases until becoming a shareholder at GrayRobinson in Miami in 2017.

The former Third DCA judge says Salter has a remarkable work ethic and is one of the most "generous and kind judges that ever sat on an appellate court." Evidence of Salter's generosity lie in projects he undertook to make the courts more accessible to those with lesser means, as well as his pro bono efforts.

Shepard said, "Good solid colleague and well thought of around the state, including by the chief justices."