Former SA Meadows to enter private practice

PANAMA CITY — Steve Meadows stood in the morning sun Saturday scraping at the old window sign on his new law office.

The former Oak Avenue office for the Bay Tax Foundation will be the home for Meadows' new private practice.

"It's a mixture of sadness and excitement," Meadows said.

Friends and family were at the building, helping the former state attorney move furniture, paintings and other possessions out of the State Attorney's Office and into the Oak Avenue space.

Meadows is the state attorney for the 14th Judicial Circuit until midnight Monday. Meadows, a Republican, served only one term as state attorney but was an assistant state attorney for 16 years.

The recently elected Glenn Hess will be sworn in Tuesday as the new state attorney.

The election was one of the most heated in Bay County, and the transition has not been without controversy. Hess has laid off 20 percent of the staff. He also has criticized the number of vehicles and weapons owned by the agency.

Meadows said Saturday that he was disappointed by the way Hess handled the layoffs and to learn that some veteran prosecutors were being laid off.

"Unfortunately, we have seen 24 families who lost their jobs," Meadows said. "Many of them just before Christmas."

Still, Meadows said the agency now belongs to Hess and wished his opponent the best.

"I want him to succeed," Meadows said. "Our community is well served by a successful state attorney's office."

It's time to move on, he added.

"We all need to come together and quit sparring in the media," Meadows said.

He added that he won't consider another run for political office for at least two years.

"I'm completely focused on trying to build this practice," Meadows said. "I've got children to feed. ... I don't have time to be bitter about an election."

Joe Grammer, a prosecutor and former spokesman for the State Attorney's Office, also is leaving the agency this week. He was elected to a county judgeship.

"It wasn't easy to pack up," Grammer said. "Those people who work the job of prosecution, it's not just a job to us. It's a kind of work that you really pour all of your energy and your efforts into because you respect the position and you respect the work and you respect the good that you can do in that job."

Grammer predicted his former boss will do well in private practice.

"He will well represent anyone who comes to him," Grammer said of Meadows. "I wish him the best."

Meadows said his law firm will handle all types of cases and although there is a second office in the building that could be home to another attorney, Meadows declined to say whether he has a partner.

"I have a unique opportunity to do a very similar thing that I have done in the public sector, and that is to be a resource for people when they are in trouble," Meadows said.

Meadows joined the U.S. Army at 18, served three years and then went into law enforcement. He went to night school at Florida State University and ultimately law school in the 1980s. He joined the State Attorney's Office in 1988.

There were mistakes and successes when he was state attorney, Meadows said.

The DUI education program is one of the successes Meadows cites most frequently. Teenagers across Bay County received DVDs and other information designed to prevent them from drinking and driving.

"I think that will pay dividends for generations to come," Meadows said.

As for mistakes, Meadows said he always had the right intentions even when he was wrong.

"I tried to come at it with the right heart and right perspective," he said. "Hindsight has provided a better perspective on some of those decisions."

Meadows said several people already have approached him, but he cannot take on clients until Tuesday.

"Being a state attorney is an incredible job. It is a unique position where every day you get a chance to go do the right thing for the right reasons," Meadows said. "I think after 20 years, I have a reputation for being an aggressive, hardnosed, tough litigator who can make sure my client's interests are advanced. That's what I've done and what I'm going to continue to do."