Benjamin Crump (3/28)

Benjamin L. Crump is a principal with the Tallahassee firm of Parks & Crump, LLC. Recently, Attorney Crump received the distinction as the first African-American to be named Philanthropist of the Year from the Association of Fundraising Professions in recognition of his donation of $1,000,000.00 to the Legal Services of North Florida. Attorney Crump was distinguished amongst Florida Trend’s Legal Elite and awarded the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Bootstrap Award in tribute to his enduring pursuit of justice, his outstanding advocacy on behalf of many who are without means of redress and for leaving footprints on the sands of time that others can follow. He received his Bachelor’s degree in 1992 in Criminal Justice from Florida State University, where he served as two-term Black Student Union President, President of the Order of Omega and the inaugural President of the Burning Spear. He then earned his Juris Doctorate from the FSU College of Law in 1995 and will become the first African-American Chairman of the Law School Board of Directors for the 2009 administration.

Having overcome very humble beginnings in rural North Carolina, Mr. Crump has quickly become one of the most recognizable and successful lawyers in America. He and his law partner, Daryl Parks, have provided legal representation and recovered large awards on behalf of their clients in some of the most high profile cases in the United States. In 2001, the firm represented Zaniyah Hinson. As discussed on the Oprah Winfrey Show, the two year old died after being left in a Daycare van for four hours in 104 degree temperatures. ESPN Sports Center broadcast another case the firm handled involving Leeronnie Ogletree, a 39 year old former ball boy for the Boston Red Sox, who was sexually molested by the teams clubhouse manager from the age of 8 to 17. Then there was the case of Genie McMeans, a 21 year old Black motorist who was shot in the back in broad daylight by a Florida Highway Patrol officer on Interstate 10, one week after he graduated from college. In North Carolina, the firm is handling the case of Lorenzo Campbell, an innocent bystander who became paralyzed after being shot in the back by a night club security guard. Also there is the matter of the “Bay Street Nine,” featured on ABC Nightly News. The case involves the largest land owner in Florida selling wetlands to financially disadvantaged, mostly single-mother families in the late 1980s only to have their homes literally sink into the ground 15 years later. The land, known to be unstable by the developer that filled it, caused the foundation to give-way rupturing gas pipes and leaving the homeowners with no hot water or heat. The foundation cracking has also allowed snakes, frogs, and other insects into the homes. Most recently, Mr. Crump has taken on the matter of Issac Singletary, an 80 year old African-American, who was shot in the back of the neck on his own property by Sheriff Deputies posing as undercover drug dealers. Not one to shy away from challenging, complex cases Mr. Crump is in litigation on behalf of Amanda Lewis, whose one year old baby and father were killed in a natural gas explosion in Melboure, Florida, after gas company officials refused to check on complaints that the strong smell of natural gas was coming from the housing project in which she lived. Mr. Crump is representing Willie James Edwards, III, whose body was recovered three days after a condominium parking garage collapsed in Jacksonville, Florida. It is well documented that in January 2006 Mr. Crump relentlessly pursued justice on behalf of the parents of Martin Lee Anderson, the 14 year- old boy who died the day after he was restrained, beaten and suffocated at a Bay County juvenile boot camp. The camp’s security cameras captured the incident on videotape. The case has been the feature of television shows like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s 20/20 and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 and continues to grab almost daily headlines in newspapers all over the nation as well as being chronicled in Essence, Jet, and Newsweek Magazines. In 2007, Martin Lee Anderson’s family recovered a multi-million dollar settlement, which is documented as the largest amount ever paid by the State of Florida in an individual wrongful death case.

In 2002, just five years after beginning his practice, Mr. Crump was inducted into the Million Dollar Advocacy Forum. And after having over twenty (20) verdicts and/or settlements of one million dollars of more, he was inducted into the Multi-Million Dollar Advocacy Forum in 2009. Together with his law partner, he has endowed scholarships at Florida A&M University, Livingston College, and Florida State University for minority law students, as well as a scholarship at Bethune Cookman College. As noted above, as Board Chairman of the Legal Services of North Florida, Attorney Crump donated $1,000,000.00 to the organization’s Capital Campaign to insure that poor people could continue to have quality legal representation and access to the courts.

Mr. Crump was appointed as the first Board Chairman of the Florida’s Big Bend Fair Housing Center, Inc., a Federal Grant organization dedicated to the eradication of housing discrimination. He was recently elected as the Board Chairman of the Internationally Renowned Tallahassee Boys Choir, and serves as current President of the National Black Alumni Association for Florida State University. Mr. Crump is a Life Member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc., the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the NAACP, and a member of the Free and Accepted Masons, Michael R. Moore Lodge 764, P.H.A. Mr. Crump is a Past President of the Tallahassee Barristers Association and the Virgil Hawkins Florida Chapter of the National Bar Association and currently, he is the Vice-President of the Federal Bar Association for the Northern District of Florida. He is a member of the American Bar Association, The Florida Justice Association and the William Stafford Inns of Court.

Over the years Mr. Crump has dedicated his areas of practice to serious personal injury, wrongful death, mass torts and civil rights. He has extensive experience litigating complicated legal matters in state and federal courts, including the United States District Courts for the Southern, Middle and Northern Districts of Florida, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, the Southern District of Mississippi, the Combined District of South Carolina, the Northern District of Texas and the Florida Supreme Court.

Mr. Crump is a frequent author and speaker. He has recently published an article entitled “The Police don’t shoot White Men in the Back, Representing Minority Victims in Police Brutality Cases.” Attorney Crump understands that the practice of law is a privilege that carries with it certain responsibilities and obligations to our society and to our democracy. He gives freely and unselfishly of his time and legal talent to represent the poor, the powerless, the defenseless and the oppressed among us. He strives through his work to fulfill the promise of equal justice for all.

He is a member of Bethel Missionary Baptist Church where he serves on the Board of Trustees. He is married to the lovely, Dr. Genae Angelique Crump.

Website: http://parkscrump.com/