Alumni Spotlight: Jim Shore ’77 ’80
With dedication to serving his community and an unflappable work ethic, Jim Shore’s path to becoming general counsel for the Seminole Tribe of Florida is as uncommon as it is inspirational.
Even before the Double Hatter set foot on either Stetson campus, his story can best be described as one of spirited perseverance in the face of daunting challenges – all in the name of giving back to the Seminole Tribe.
In 2022, he established the Jim Shore Scholarship for the Seminole Tribe of Florida Endowment, which encourages and supports members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida to follow in Shore’s footsteps by pursuing a legal education at Stetson University College of Law.
Shore said he hopes to encourage others in his community to cultivate careers in which they can use their skills to help the tribe prosper.
“The continued success of the Seminole Tribe of Florida depends on the education of future generations of its members,” Shore said. “We hope Stetson University College of Law becomes an important partner in attracting, educating, and preparing Seminole students to become attorneys.”
Hard work in the face of the unexpected
Jim Shore was born in 1945 in an area just northwest of Lake Okeechobee, where his family raised cattle and lived in chickees with thatched roofs and no indoor plumbing. Despite the challenge of being born blind in one eye, he graduated from Okeechobee High School in 1963 and worked in construction, as a mechanic, and even as a cowboy.
In 1970, an auto accident sent shards of glass into his eyes, resulting in complete blindness. Without the ability to see, he needed to start over with a new career direction; Shore would joke that he couldn’t make a living riding a horse. He turned to education, first earning his B.A. in history from Stetson University’s
DeLand campus in 1976. After hearing his classmates talk about going on to study law at the University’s Gulfport law school campus, he applied and was accepted.
His dedication to his legal studies while at Stetson Law became the stuff of legend. The St. Petersburg Times even wrote about his unique method of studying law by taping class lectures on a small reel-to-reel, then listening to the tape for up to seven hours a day before recording his own notes on additional tapes.
His legal colleagues say that experience left him with an uncanny ability to hear what’s said in negotiations – as well as what’s not said.
A few days before graduating from Stetson Law, he slipped on wet pavement and broke his ankle – and attended the ceremony with help from a wheelchair. With his family by his side, he became the first Seminole to earn a law degree.
A career spent giving back
After passing the bar, he worked as deputy counsel for the then-3,000-member Seminole Tribe of Florida in 1981. A year later, he became general counsel for the tribe, now 4,200 strong, a role he has held ever since.
He helped form the Seminole Police Department and effectively negotiated a series of water use challenges between the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the state, and the federal government.
His work has greatly improved the health and welfare of the Seminole people by helping to diversify tribe enterprises, including negotiations between the tribe and the state to secure the 2007 gaming agreement that allowed for Las Vegas-style gaming at the tribe’s six Florida casinos. He also shepherded the tribe’s monumental acquisition of the Hard Rock hotel, restaurant, and casino chain.
Recognition for passionate advocacy
In 2020, Shore won the American Bar Association’s Energy, Environment and Resources Government Attorney of the Year award for his legal work and achievements in the areas of the environment, energy, and natural resources.
He continues to focus on Everglades restoration and Lake Okeechobee management within the Brighton Reservation, which now encompasses the area where he grew up, and the Big Cypress Seminole Reservation. In a video introducing Shore, attorney Michelle Diffenderfer, president of Florida-based firm Lewis, Longman & Walker, who has worked with Shore for years, lauded him for his “incredible
listening skills and a penchant for knowing just what to do at the right time.”
Shore also received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Florida State University in 2005 and was inducted into Stetson Law’s Hall of Fame in 2010.
In 2023, the Stetson Lawyers’ Alumni Association honored Shore with its Ben Willard Award, which recognizes “alumni whose tireless efforts and humanitarian work have demonstrably benefited Floridians.”
Post date: Oct. 30, 2024
Media contact: Kate Bradshaw
[email protected] | 727-430-1580