By Lily Huiping Liu
Justice Jamie R. Grosshans grew up in Brookhaven, Mississippi, surrounded by family. As an only child, young Justice Grosshans spent her somewhat quiet days with many imaginary friends, practically lived in the public library, and steadily worked on her project to read every book in the library’s collection. Significant progress was made over the course of 18 years. Aside from being an avid reader, Justice Grosshans also made a few career plans, including becoming a dolphin trainer, an FBI agent, and a physician. None of those dreams involved becoming a lawyer, even though, when looking back now, Justice Grosshans could see a lawyer in the making: as a child, she argued a lot and often got in trouble for it.
At the end of college, Justice Grosshans wanted to join the civil service and work in U.S. embassies overseas. At the time, the position she was attracted to required law degrees. Resolute as she was, Justice Grosshans took the LSAT in two weeks and went to law school so that she could become a civil servant. What was meant to be a career detour turned into a lifelong commitment when Justice Grosshans met her future husband, “a Florida boy,” in a law school summer internship and decided to follow him to Florida. The couple settled in Orlando, Florida, started a family there, and raised three children together.
By now, Justice Grosshans has lived in central Florida longer than she lived in Mississippi. Considering herself a Florida girl with Mississippi roots, Justice Grosshans enjoyed Brookhaven’s serenity, where her children visiting from the backyard of Disney World and Universal Studios could be thrilled by a simple ride on a lawn mower, but she also loves central Florida for its wonders, natural resources, and opportunities. Most of all, Justice Grosshans loves practicing law in Florida.
Following admission to the Florida Bar, Justice Grosshans started her legal career as an Assistant State Attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit of Florida. From her office in the Orange County courthouse complex, she brought numerous criminal cases before juries, focusing on misdemeanors and felonies. Many years later, in the same courthouse, Justice Grosshans served as an Orange County Court judge, which, she believes to this day, might be the best job in the world.
Justice Grosshans sees many reasons why county court judges play such a crucial role in the state, one of which is their significant interaction with the public. “For many people in the state, their only interaction with the judicial system may be with a county court judge,” Justice Grosshans observed. County court judges handle matters of seemingly less severity, such as traffic tickets, misdemeanors, and civil claims in relatively small amounts, Justice Grosshans explained, but these are often the things that matter immensely to an individual. When serving as a county judge, Justice Grosshans found that an important component of her job was to problem solve, “trying to figure out how an individual can get back on track, for example, to be a legal driver.”
Another important role county judges play, Justice Grosshans remarked, is to show people a level of professionalism and steadiness. Justice Grosshans recalled some crazy days being a county court judge when she had to arraign 150 people in a courtroom, one after another. “That is exhausting, and can be a little frustrating, depending on the situation, but that is something county court judges do day in, day out, and that’s so beneficial for both the public and for the young attorneys appearing in front of them to see how difficult, frustrating situations can be managed with steadiness.”
Looking back on her days as a county court judge, Justice Grosshans found the most rewarding part was interacting with jurors at trials and watching the jury system, a unique American tradition, work: “I would get choked up all the time watching the jurors come in and giving them my speech about this tradition we have had for over 200 years, a trial by jury of your peers that is almost unheard of in the world.” Justice Grosshans loved watching the jurors, reading their expressions, interacting with them, and being constantly amazed by their sacrifice and dedication to a deeply cherished part of our constitutional system.
On September 14, 2020, Justice Grosshans was appointed by Governor Ron DeSantis as the 91st Justice of the Florida Supreme Court, after serving as an appellate judge at the Fifth District Court of Appeal for two years. Like how she found it personally rewarding to be able to help put an individual back on track as a county court judge, at the Florida Supreme Court, Justice Grosshans finds it equally satisfying to be able to find solutions for the people of Florida, whether it is a case, an administrative decision, or a rule amendment: “When you have figured out something that is really going to help, something very beneficial for how justice is served in the state, it is a very satisfying thing.”
When it comes to decisions of the court, Justice Grosshans believes that an independent judiciary is very important. As a judge, Justice Grosshans said, her role is not to make policy or policy calls, but to follow the law and interpret the law in the best way one can: “I do that independently of what I think a political party would want, what I think I want, what I think the legislature would want, or even what I think people would want at the end of the day. I’m bound by what the words of the law say.”
In terms of opinion writing, Justice Grosshans’s principle is “to write opinions that anyone can read.” Instead of a bunker to hide from the public what has happened, Justice Grosshans believes that a judicial opinion should show the average American a clear path of how the court found the answer to the question before it. This is even more essential, Justice Grosshans observed, given that the judiciary is the only government branch that explains itself in writing: “It really makes the judicial branch very special, a pillar of stability, an anchor of our society.”
On April 1, 2024, Justice Grosshans delivered the Florida Supreme Court’s landmark opinion in Planned Parenthood of Sw. and Cent. Fla. v. State, 384 So. 3d 67 (Fla. 2024). The opinion epitomized Justice Grosshans’ judicial philosophy and writing style. Even though the case drew widespread attention to the question of whether abortion should be legal in Florida, Justice Grosshans explained, the ultimate issue for the court to decide was distinct: whether a Florida constitutional clause covered a particular subject when it was enacted. To Justice Grosshans, her role in the case as a justice was not to make policy decisions about whether abortion is good or bad or whether we should have it or not have it, but rather, to decide whether the Privacy Clause of the Florida Constitution guaranteed the right to abortion at its adoption.
Knowing that it was a high-profile case involving a controversial subject with potentially great consequence for the public as well as the court’s precedent, Justice Grosshans wrote the opinion with a clear goal in mind: “I wanted whoever was going to read it, whether a woman, or a man, or a teacher, an accountant, to understand why the court came to the conclusion it did.” And for that, she succeeded, as people who disagreed completely with the court’s conclusion would come to tell her that even though they disagreed with her conclusion, they understood exactly how she got there—the analysis itself was exactly how an analysis should go.
If to retire from the Florida Supreme Court one day, Justice Grosshans wants to pursue a master’s degree in art history—back to the libraries—and work in a museum. Another project on her list is to restore a historic house. When I brought up the renovations in the Florida Supreme Court, Justice Grosshans took pride in her work and in the building she loves: “The building is very special to me because I think it is something that is entrusted to us through generations, and it should be there for generations. But it is not our building. It does not belong to the court. It belongs to the people.”
About the Author: Lily Huiping Liu is an attorney with Greenberg Traurig, P.A. Before joining Greenberg Traurig, Lily clerked for the Honorable John D. Couriel of the Supreme Court of Florida.
