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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

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