Ben Crump Winning the - Florida State University College of Law
Ben Crump Winning the - Florida State University College of Law
Ben Crump Winning the - Florida State University College of Law
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alumni focus<br />
FSU LAW ■ SPRING 2006<br />
Beating <strong>the</strong><br />
<strong>Ben</strong> <strong>Crump</strong> recalls <strong>the</strong> day in 1993<br />
when he ran into Daryl Parks during<br />
<strong>the</strong>ir fi rst week at <strong>the</strong> <strong>Florida</strong><br />
<strong>State</strong> <strong>University</strong> <strong>College</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Law</strong>. They had<br />
met as undergraduates when Parks was a<br />
two-term president <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> <strong>Florida</strong> A&M<br />
<strong>University</strong> student body and <strong>Crump</strong> was<br />
president <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Black Student Union at<br />
2<br />
<strong>Ben</strong> <strong>Crump</strong><br />
<strong>Winning</strong> <strong>the</strong> ‘No-Win’ Cases<br />
BY BARBARA ASH<br />
<strong>Florida</strong> <strong>State</strong>.<br />
“We naturally gravitated toward one<br />
ano<strong>the</strong>r because we had concluded that we<br />
were <strong>the</strong> poorest people in <strong>the</strong> law school<br />
and that we had <strong>the</strong> most to prove,” <strong>Crump</strong><br />
said recently. “We were <strong>the</strong>re not to carry<br />
on <strong>the</strong> family tradition, but to give our<br />
families—not just us—a chance for some<br />
<strong>Law</strong> partners <strong>Ben</strong> <strong>Crump</strong>, left, and Daryl<br />
Parks fl ank <strong>the</strong> Reverends Jesse Jackson<br />
and Al Sharpton and associate Keisha Rice,<br />
’04, as <strong>the</strong>y march to <strong>the</strong> Capitol to demand<br />
an arrest in <strong>the</strong> Martin Lee Anderson case.<br />
success. The whole family was counting<br />
on us to make it through law school so we<br />
could save <strong>the</strong>m.”<br />
Now 13 years later, <strong>the</strong> former classmates<br />
are partners in one <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> most successful<br />
personal injury law fi rms in <strong>Florida</strong> and <strong>the</strong><br />
second largest African-American-owned<br />
plaintiff’s law fi rm in <strong>the</strong> country. Civil