As we reported last week, the tranquility in the Democratic race for Attorney General broke suddenly and furiously last week after Dave Aronberg called on Dan Gelber to leave his law firm – Akerman Senterfitt – because the firm is working on behalf of disgraced oil giant BP here in Florida.
That was last Monday night. Shortly thereafter, Gelber told the world (specifically the St. Petersburg Times) that in fact, he had resigned from his long standing employer, the previous Thursday. Gelber said that against the advise of others, he opted not to call a press conference and make an issue out of it, and scolded Aronberg all week that he was being "sophomoric" in making an issue out of it, since he said that Aronberg had known that Akerman Senterfitt was representing BP for weeks and never made an issue about it until after Gelber quit. Gelber added that he just couldn't quit overnight, because he had many clients that he needed to give a heads up to, and wasn't going to do so through the newspapers.
The Gelber camp then released the e-mail that he sent to the head of the law firm, in which he writes that it would not be until some time in "early July," that he would actually step down from the firm.
From: Dan Gelber
Date: Thu, Jun 24, 2010 at 10:28 AM
Subject: dan gelber
To: Andrew Smulian
Dear Andrew:
Thanks for the opportunity to work with the lawyers of Akerman Senterfitt. As we discussed, I
am resigning my “of counsel” affiliation in early July to give me time to adequately assure client
transition issues and administrative matters are addressed.
But Aronberg is continuing to seize on the issue. On Friday, he sent out a letter to supporters where he chastised Gelber for being less than forthcoming on the whole issue, writing that "The Republican attack machine would have a field day with this."
This article appears in Jul 1-7, 2010.