Justice jorge labarga biography of william
Jorge Labarga was born in Cuba in 1952 and arrived in the United with the Passing of the Gavel to Justice Jorge Labarga....
He is the court's fifty-sixth chief justice of Florida and served as chief justice from 2014 – 2018.
Chief Justice Jorge Labarga – Making History in the Florida Supreme Court
As of June 30, Jorge Labarga stepped into his role as the first ever Cuban-American Florida Supreme Court chief justice. Arriving in Florida at the age of 11, Labarga knew an immediate appreciation for the “freedoms and rights that we have … and vowed to protect those rights.”
Justice Pariente is quoted as saying, “It has been a long, long journey from the sugar cane fields of Pahokee to the halls of the Supreme Court.”
Labarga became a double Gator, attaining his Bachelor of Arts as well as his Juris Doctor from the University of Florida.
His friends and colleagues noted that he was industrious, taking nothing for granted, earning their respect. He began his career in 1979 as an assistant public defender, and later joined the West Palm Beach State Attorney’s office to hone his trial skills, which he would later use on the opposite side of the bench.
He then headed to private practice as a successful pe