Daisy Richards Bisz
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Daisy Richards Bisz was born Daisy Gammage in 1909 in
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
and lived in Coral Gables, Florida. She died of heart failure May 8, 2007 in
Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...
,
Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...
. Bisz was a prominent Florida attorney. A survivor of infantile
polio Poliomyelitis ( ), commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 75% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe ...
(which briefly paralyzed her from the neck down), she was one of three sisters, an avid fisher, and played church piano music when she wasn't busy with her job. Bisz went on to become one of the Florida's first female lawyers.


Professional career

Bisz graduated high school in 1927 and was sponsored by the Citizens and Southern Bank of Atlanta loan to attend a business college. She was 18 when she left the business office and got a job at a law office. However, it wasn't until her uncle encouraged her to become a lawyer that she pursued it. Though Bisz had no formal college degree, she studied law at the South Florida College of Law but dropped out after learning four of the thirty two subjects on the bar exam so that she could teach herself the rest in time. Bisz passed the bar is exam in 1937 and was admitted to a Florida Bar the same year. She was so dedicated to her job that when her arm was seriously injured in 1954, she was back to work as soon as she was released from her three-month hospitalization. The very same year, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to be admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States and the Court of Military Appeals (the country's two highest courts). Bisz was one of the first woman admitted to the Dade County Bar Association in 1937. She sat on its courts committee and was unanimously voted in to take Director
George Smathers George Armistead Smathers (November 14, 1913 – January 20, 2007) was an American lawyer and politician from the state of Florida who served in both chambers of the United States Congress, the United States House of Representatives from 1947 t ...
position in July 1942 after previously serving three terms as secretary. Bisz was the first woman to hold such a prestigious position with the Dade County Bar. Furthermore, Bisz was giving at least one day a week to draw up wills for members of the armed services (or legal matters for anyone dependent on them) for free. Additionally, Bisz was the secretary for Sunset Lanes Groves Inc. and director of Boulevard Grocery Corporation. Bisz specialized in
probate In common law jurisdictions, probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased; or whereby, in the absence of a legal will, the e ...
law: proving that a will is valid and administering estate according to the will of the deceased person. Most notably, Bisz represented clients whose property had been seized in
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
's 1959
Cuban revolution The Cuban Revolution () was the military and political movement that overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, who had ruled Cuba from 1952 to 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, in which Batista overthrew ...
. A few of whom she represented include
Fernando CabezaWinnifred Clover FrodinGerladine F. Walsh, Margy F Thiel, and Joseph E. Fitzgerlad
In the cases against the Cuban government, previously mentioned, Bisz was able to get each of the people she represented a cash refund for their lost land. Additionally, she won them a settlement of 6% interest from the time the land was lost until the court date. Bisz also represented
Ted Williams Theodore Samuel Williams (August 30, 1918 – July 5, 2002) was an American professional baseball player and manager. He played his entire 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career, primarily as a left fielder, for the Boston Red Sox from 193 ...
, the
Boston Red Sox The Boston Red Sox are an American professional baseball team based in Boston. The Red Sox compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) American League East, East Division. Founded in as one of the Ameri ...
baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...
legend.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bisz, Daisy Richards 1909 births 2007 deaths 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers American lawyers with disabilities Polio survivors