In June 2021, as the incoming president of the Orange County Bar Association, Eric Reed sat down with Chief Judge Donald A. Myers, Jr. for the Ninth Judicial Circuit’s podcast. The conversation is a portrait of a lawyer who came to the profession the long way around.
Open Ninth: Conversations Beyond the Courtroom is the podcast of Florida’s Ninth Judicial Circuit, hosted by its chief judge. Episode 127 features Eric Reed, recorded as he prepared to take office as president of the Orange County Bar Association for the 2021–22 term.
Eric grew up in Boynton Beach in a family with three generations of lawyers, but he did not go straight to law school. He studied broadcast journalism at the University of Florida, then spent years in sales management for a national consumer-products company, directing operations in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He earned his law degree in Barry University’s evening program, began his career as an assistant state attorney in the Ninth Circuit, and then built a civil practice concentrated in creditors’ rights and commercial litigation — the practice he brought to the firm’s Orlando office in April 2025.
Much of the episode is about how a career holds together over decades. Eric talks about the judges and senior lawyers who mentored him, about a formative pro se case early in his career that tested his sense of what the rules require, and about the stress of balancing ambition against the rest of life. His advice to younger lawyers is plain: “The practice of law, in this case, certainly is a marathon.” And, on the inevitable mistakes: “Do the right thing, if you make a mistake tell the client.”
His priorities as bar president reflected the moment — the summer of 2021 — and his temperament: reopening the bar’s social events safely, restoring the in-person Bench Bar Conference, and expanding mentorship for younger attorneys. At the time he also chaired the board of Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Florida, and he admits to woodworking as a way of clearing his head. During his presidential year he wrote a monthly “President’s Message” column for The Briefs, the OCBA’s magazine; the July 2021 installment was titled “Summer Break.”
The circuit has posted both the audio and a full transcript. For anyone who works in Orlando’s courts, it is a good hour with a lawyer many of them already know.
Listen / read: Open Ninth: Conversations Beyond the Courtroom — Episode 127, Eric Reed — Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida, June 2021 (transcript)
About Eric C. Reed
Eric C. Reed is a shareholder in the firm’s Orlando office. His practice centers on commercial litigation, construction litigation, commercial landlord-tenant disputes, creditors’ rights, and lender representation, and he frequently serves as an attorney-fee expert. A former assistant state attorney in the Ninth Judicial Circuit, he served as president of the Orange County Bar Association for the 2021–22 term.
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