Boies, Lawyers in 2000 Fight on Call for Florida's 2004 Vote

New York Lawyer
August 9, 2004

By Julie Kay
Miami Daily Business Review

Barry Richard and David Boies, two of the courtroom stars of the infamous 2000 presidential ballot recount fight in Florida, are set to do battle again if voting problems arise in the George W. Bush-John Kerry contest in November.

And Boies predicts that there will indeed be litigation.

Richard, 62, a shareholder at Greenberg Traurig in Tallahassee who is one of Florida’s top appellate litigators, said he agreed last week to represent the Bush/Cheney campaign, but only in matters arising after the election.

Joseph Agostini, spokesman for the Republican Party of Florida, declined to confirm or deny Richard’s hiring.

Richard said in an interview that he was informally approached by both Republicans and Democrats in recent months about representing their presidential campaigns. But, he said, he conferred with Greenberg chief executive officer Cesar Alvarez and they decided it would be unethical for any Greenberg lawyers to represent the Kerry campaign because the firm represented George W. Bush’s campaign in 2000 and has inside information about the Republicans.

He told state Republican officials last week that he wants to keep himself free up to Election Day, Nov. 2, to serve as a broadcast news commentator, he said.

Boies, 63, the founding partner of Armonk, N.Y.-based Boies Schiller & Flexner, said he will represent the Kerry/Edwards campaign if any major litigation occurs after the election.

In 2000, Boies served as lead counsel for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. He represented the Gore/Lieberman campaign before both the Florida Supreme Court and U.S. Supreme Court, which stopped the Florida recount and essentially handed the presidency to Bush.

“I will not be involved unless there is litigation,” Boies said in an interview. “I would not be involved in any immediate litigation on Election Day, such as lawsuits to keep the polls open. But post-election, I would agree to be involved.”

Boies predicted there will be post-election litigation in Florida over problems with the touch-screen voting systems used in 15 Florida counties, including Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach. “It’s particularly unfortunate that some touch-screen machines have a verifiable audit and others don’t,” he said.