“Dick” was raised on a farm in the little community of Fellowship, near Ocala, where his father farmed and also taught school. Justice Ervin attended school in several counties, including Leon, Orange, Citrus, Marion and DeSoto – the number of different schools occasionally led by his father as principal. In 1921 at the age of 16, he served as Engrossing Clerk for the Florida House of Representatives, becoming the youngest person to hold this responsible position. He graduated from the University of Florida Levin College of Law in 1928 and commenced practicing law in Pinellas, Lee, and Putnam Counties until 1935.
He married the former Frances Baker of Jacksonville in 1933 and were the proud parents of Retired Florida First District Court Appeals Judge Richard W. Ervin, III and Sarah Eve Ervin.
Justice Ervin entered full-time public service in 1935 as an attorney for the State Road Department. He served as Road Department Lawyer until August of 1943, then as Assistant Attorney General until January 1945 when he became Secretary of the Florida Railroad Commission for six months. He resumed his position as Resident Attorney for the Road Department until he resigned in January of 1948 to campaign successfully for the office of Attorney General of Florida.
Labeled by state legislators as a “wild man,” and branded by his supreme court colleagues as a “dissenter,” Ervin could be described by many as an unabashed liberal. He is credited with guiding the state from segregation (based on the brief he wrote to the United States Supreme Court’s request from each state’s Attorney General on how to rule regarding Brown v. Board of Education) and desegregating its schools.
His administration of the Office of the Attorney General from 1948 until 1964 was distinguished by the publication of the first original revision of Florida Statutes since 1941, and by his drive to rid the State of Florida of organized bookmaking and illegal gambling activities. Because of his efforts in this field, Attorney General Ervin has achieved national and state acclaim and was selected by the Junior Chamber of Commerce as Florida’s Outstanding Government Official in 1950. He was also a prominent member of the National Association of Attorneys General.
Richard William Ervin, Jr. served as Attorney General until his appointment as a member of the Supreme Court of Florida in 1964 by Governor Farris Bryant. Subsequently elected statewide to the position as the 55th Justice since Statehood, Justice Ervin served until he neared the mandatory retirement age of 70 on January 7, 1975. As a Justice of the Florida Supreme Court and Chief Justice from 1969 to 1971, he considered his years on the Supreme Court the most satisfying of his 40 years of public service. The Justice said of his contributions that he tried to blow the chaff of judicial procedures so that the odds wouldn’t be so great against the average citizen. He felt that the law should try within reason to help people whose incomes were below the federal poverty threshold, women, African-Americans and the disadvantaged.
