Justice Harry Lee Anstead was
appointed to the Florida Supreme Court August 29, 1994, by
Governor Lawton Chiles. One of six children, he was
born in Jacksonville, Florida, on
November 4, 1937. He was raised
by his mother, Loretta, in the
Brentwood housing project and
graduated from Andrew Jackson
High School in 1956. He served
with the National Security Agency
in Washington, D.C., before attending law school.
He received bachelor of arts
and juris doctor degrees from the
University of Florida, and an
LL.M. degree from the University
of Virginia. He is a graduate of the
regular trial judges education program of the National College of the
State Judiciary, and numerous
other national judicial education
programs.
After 13 years as a trial and
appellate lawyer, he was elected to
the Fourth District Court of Appeal in l976 and served there until
his appointment to the Supreme
Court. He served as chief judge of
the district court and also served as
an acting circuit and county court
judge. He consistently received the
highest approval ratings among
Supreme Court Justices and appellate judges in the statewide judicial
polls of Florida lawyers, including
the highest rating of 95% in 1994.
Justice Anstead has published
numerous articles relating to legal
education, constitutional law, appellate practice, and various other
topics. He served as an ad hoc
member of the American Bar Association's advisory committee of the
Appellate Judges Conference which
was devoted to planning and implementing the LL.M. program on
the judicial process at the University of Virginia.
He was a member of the Supreme Court Commission on the
Structure of Florida's Courts;
served for twelve years as an active
member and Vice-Chair of the Supreme Court Committee on Civil
Jury Instructions; and was a founder and president of the American
Inns of Court for Palm Beach County.
He has been a lecturer on
appellate practice at Nova Southeastern University Law School and
served on the School's Board of
Governors. He was honored by
students there for his longtime
work with the Moot Court program.
He has served on the Florida
Bar's steering committee for its
CLE publications on Florida appellate practice and comparative negligence. Justice Anstead initiated
the regular publication of the attorney's oath in the Bar Journal as
well as the practice of providing
bar members with a formal copy of
the oath upon admission to the bar.
He and his wife, Sue, have
five children Chris, Jim, Laura,
Amy, and Michael. He has been a
founder and leader in numerous
civic and charitable organizations
in his community as well as an
active member of Holy Name of
Jesus Catholic Church in West
Palm Beach. His wife, Sue, graduated from law school in 1990 and
is a former child advocate for the Legal Aid Society. She now has left this position to join Justice Anstead in Tallahassee.
Office Information
If you want to talk to the Justice about your legal case or about a Court opinion, please follow this link now. Otherwise Justice Anstead's office may be reached in Tallahassee by phone at (850) 488-2281. The judicial assistant (secretary) in Justice Anstead's office is Kay Livings, and his staff attorneys are Cathy Williams and Henry Graham. The mailing address is 500 South Duval Street, Tallahassee FL 32399-1925. The public E-Mail address of the Justices is:
supremecourt@mail.flcourts.org
![[PHOTOGRAPH: Justice Harry Lee Anstead]](images/anstead2.jpg)