Randall Challen Berg Jr. (January 17, 1949 – April 10, 2019) was an American attorney.

Biography

Berg was born to Randall Challen Berg and Margaret Baker Berg. He spent most of his childhood in

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the List of United States cities by area, largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the co ...

, graduating from Robert E. Lee High School in 1967. He attended the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which r ...

, graduating in 1971 with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in political science with a minor in English. He served three years in the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

, stationed out of

Treasure Island, California Treasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay and a neighborhood in the City and County of San Francisco. Built in 1936–37 for the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, the island's World's Fair site is a California ...

, achieving the rank of

lieutenant junior grade Lieutenant junior grade is a junior commissioned officer rank used in a number of navies. United States Lieutenant (junior grade), commonly abbreviated as LTJG or, historically, Lt. (j.g.) (as well as variants of both abbreviations), i ...

. Berg attended

George Mason University School of Law The Antonin Scalia Law School (previously George Mason University School of Law) is the law school of George Mason University, a public research university in Virginia. It is located in Arlington, Virginia, roughly west of Washington, D.C., an ...

, graduating in 1978. He married his wife Carol in 1978 and then moved to Miami to start the Florida Justice Institute (FJI). He had a son, Randall Challen Berg III, who was born in 1987. Berg was the executive director of the

Florida Justice Institute The Florida Justice Institute (FJI) is a nonprofit public interest law firm in Miami, Florida. It was established in 1978 by Randall C. Berg Jr. The institute has been dedicated to improving conditions in Florida's prison system and has initia ...

, a

public interest The public interest is "the welfare or well-being of the general public" and society. Overview Economist Lok Sang Ho in his ''Public Policy and the Public Interest'' argues that the public interest must be assessed impartially and, therefore ...

law firm in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

which he established in 1978. He has conducted and been involved in numerous individual and

class action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class action ...

s that strive to improve conditions in

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, a ...

's prison and jails. He was chairman of the Corrections Committee of The

Florida Bar The Florida Bar is the integrated bar association for the state of Florida. It is the third largest such bar in the United States. Its duties include the regulation and discipline of attorneys. The Florida Bar is also responsible for the govern ...

, and president of the

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". ...

of Florida. He served on Florida Governor Chiles' Transition Criminal Justice Task Force, and several legislative committees dealing with criminal justice and corrections issues. He has been an

adjunct professor An adjunct professor is a type of academic appointment in higher education who does not work at the establishment full-time. The terms of this appointment and the job security of the tenure vary in different parts of the world, however the gener ...

of law at the

University of Miami School of Law The University of Miami School of Law (Miami Law or UM Law) is the law school of the University of Miami, a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. Founded in 1926, the University of Miami School of Law is the oldest law school in ...

, and directs the Volunteer Lawyers' Project for the

U.S. District Court The United States district courts are the trial courts of the U.S. federal judiciary. There is one district court for each federal judicial district, which each cover one U.S. state or, in some cases, a portion of a state. Each district cou ...

for Florida's Southern District. He worked to develop the United States' first Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account ( IOLTA) program in Florida, and then assisted in establishing IOLTA programs nationwide and defending its constitutionality as the executive director of the National IOLTA Clearinghouse. IOLTA has created over $5 billion nationwide to primarily fund legal services for the poor In November 2018, he and FJI were named to the Daily Business Review's 2018 Most Effective Lawyers list for their public interest work in securing treatment for prisoners infected with

hepatitis C Hepatitis C is an infectious disease caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV) that primarily affects the liver; it is a type of viral hepatitis. During the initial infection people often have mild or no symptoms. Occasionally a fever, dark urine, ...

. Berg retired at the end of 2018, two years after initially being diagnosed with

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most comm ...

. He was proud of the 40 years of work fighting "for the rights of the downtrodden, disabled, disenfranchised and even the despised." On April 10, 2019, the Florida Justice Institute announced that Berg had died from complications of ALS. On June 8, 2023, Jacksonville University established the Randall C. Berg Jr. College of Law Deanship. This endowed deanship was given in honor of Randall by his brother Gilchrist Berg.

References

External links

Randall C. Berg Jr.
at FJI * Findla
"Randall C. Berg Jr."
FindLaw * Think Exis
"Randall Berg Quotes"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Berg, Randall C. Jr. 1949 births 2019 deaths Deaths from motor neuron disease in Florida Lawyers from Jacksonville, Florida Robert E. Lee High School (Jacksonville) alumni 20th-century American lawyers