Craig Waters

It chronicled the emerging use both of public spokespersons and high-technology communication increasingly employed by courts worldwide in the 21st Century.

Waters began work at the Florida Supreme Court on March 2, 1987 as a law clerk (staff attorney).

In the early 1990s, Waters helped create and expand the Florida Supreme Court's website at a time when the World-Wide Web was new and barely understood.

Under the administration of Chief Justice Gerald Kogan, Waters led the Florida Supreme Court's efforts to begin webcasting video of all of its oral arguments when the technology to do so first became available.

Simultaneously, the Court began broadcasting via satellite and over the cable network the Florida Channel as part of the same program.

Broadcasts continue to the present day.

He also was responsible for a pioneering effort started in 1994 to place all court documents in high-profile cases on the Web for instant public access.

Craig Waters is a former public information officer and communications director for the Florida Supreme Court in Tallahassee from June 1, 1996, through February 28, 2022.

He worked in the open government and First Amendment rights as a lawyer and governmental official.

Prior to Waters becoming the court public information officer in 1996, the Florida Supreme Court routinely avoided contact with media and was widely seen as secretive.

Waters changed that approach, first by putting large amounts of public information on the Florida Supreme Court website he maintained.

Before becoming the Florida Supreme Court's first public information officer in 1996, Waters served for nine years as a staff attorney.

He worked in this capacity for nearly three years with Florida's first woman Justice, Rosemary Barkett from West Palm Beach.

In 1997, Waters led a project that put all Florida Supreme Court arguments on live television, cable, satellite, and web broadcasts.

In September 1997 in cooperation with Florida State University, Waters launched the first comprehensive program to broadcast all court arguments live on television, via satellite, on cable systems, and in webcasts.

That program, now called Gavel to Gavel.

remains in place today and has been imitated by other courts.

He was also the public spokesman for the Court during the 2000 presidential election controversy.

He announced lawsuit rulings regarding Florida's vote in the election.

These cases include George W. Bush v. Albert Gore Jr. or Bush v. Gore.

Waters' role in these events has been included in films, documentaries, and books about Florida's undecided 2000 general election, which forced the world to wait for more than a month to learn who would become the next President of the United States of America.

In the early 2000s, Waters made the Florida Supreme Court a pioneer in the use of emerging social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to communicate with the public.

This work was influenced by Waters' prior career as a Florida journalist and by his experience as an openly gay man.

For more than a month following the November 7, 2000, election, Florida's vote for the presidency remained undecided and too close to call, with the outcome hinging on legal decisions from the Florida Supreme Court that were announced by Waters on live worldwide television.

The first decision occurred on November 21, 2000, when Waters announced a court ruling extending the vote-counting deadline previously set by Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris.

The second was on December 8, 2000, when Waters announced a decision requiring a statewide recount of ballots.

The United States Supreme Court overruled this last decision on December 12, 2000, in an opinion that effectively handed the presidency to George W. Bush.

Waters later told a newspaper reporter: "My role as Court spokesman back then is something great to have in your past, once it proves to be a success. But I can tell you that the success was by no means guaranteed at the time. I came to work every day for more than a month in the fall of 2000 knowing there were a thousand ways to fail and millions of people watching."

A writer and legal scholar, Waters' works include "Waters' Dictionary of Florida Law" published by London-based Butterworths, a three-volume treatise "AIDS and Florida Law" also published by Butterworths, and several dozen scholarly articles on various subjects generally related to civil rights, AIDS and disability law, court emergency preparedness, and the use of technology to improve court and media relations.

He is coauthor of a comprehensive article on Florida Supreme Court protocol and jurisdiction.

The article is titled "Technological Transparency: Appellate Court & Media Relations after Bush v. Gore."

The media also credited Waters' work in 2000 with putting pressure on federal courts and the U.S. Supreme Court in particular to provide the public greater technological access to their own proceedings.

Prior to attending law school, Waters was a reporter for the Gannett Company in the Tallahassee capital press corps, covering state government and the state Supreme Court he eventually would work for.

His experience as a statehouse journalist greatly influenced his approach to court and media relations.

The film, which had a broadcast premiere of May 25, 2008, and initially was produced by Sydney Pollack, chronicled the events in Florida during the presidential election lawsuits and appeals.

Starting in 2015, Waters began implementing Chief Justice Jorge Labarga's plans, approved by the entire Florida Supreme Court, to implement a statewide communications plan for the state courts.

The plan relies heavily on the use of public information officers or PIOs at all 27 divisions of the Florida State Courts and calls for increasing use of social media and other new technology like smartphones.

The plan is being implemented through an organization Waters founded a decade earlier, the Florida Court Public Information Officers, Inc., a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit formed as a professional association.

Waters retired after 35 years on February 28, 2022.

Waters is portrayed in the HBO Movie Recount by the actor Alex Staggs.