As a registered pharmacist, Salesia Smith-Gordon contemplated returning to school to become a veterinarian or doctor. Her plans changed after a conversation with her mother, Jeraldine Williams, a 1981 graduate of the FSU College of Law.

“I knew that after pharmacy, I would pursue an additional career path,” Smith-Gordon said. “I was leaning toward the medical field and my mother called me and said, ‘I want you to take the LSAT.’ It was just that simple. I was an obedient child, I listened to her rationale and I said, ‘That sounds like a good idea.’ And I did it. I enjoy what I do every day and I’m glad I made that decision.”

Upon graduating from the College of Law in 1992, Smith-Gordon immediately opened her own firm in Tallahassee within her mom’s office, with whom she had worked during law school.

“I did not interview with any companies or any law firms while in law school,” said Smith-Gordon. “I had always seen my family be business owners. My grandfather Judge Williams’ parents were sharecroppers. As a child he worked in the fields, but knew it was not the life for him, left Georgia and ended up in Tampa where he became a successful automobile mechanic business owner. My mother was a business owner, my biological grandfather, Lee Brown, was a business owner – a barber – and so that is what I saw.”