Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
Attorney Jim Shore, a powerful advocate who helped the Seminole Tribe of Florida to reach unprecedent levels of financial success, died Saturday, Aug. 30, in a Florida hospital after suffering a heart attack at his home.
Shore, 80, served as general counsel of the Seminole Tribe and brought billions of dollars to the tribe through negotiating gaming contracts, water rights and the storied purchase of the Hard Rock International enterprise.
Shore died at Cleveland Clinic Hospital in Weston, Florida, after falling ill at his home in the nearby town of Davie.
“A man of few words, but with a big heart and exceptional vision, Jim Shore worked tirelessly to ensure a prosperous future for the members of the Seminole Tribe of Florida,” Seminole Tribe Chairman Marcellus Osceola Jr.said in a statement. “We owe him a huge debt of gratitude for everything he accomplished on the Tribe’s behalf.”
Shore’s nephew, Everett Osceola, the cultural ambassador for the tribe, posted a tribute on social media.
“Today we laid to rest one of my heroes,” he wrote. “He was a Great Uncle and Father figure to me. He taught me a lot about history, resiliency, music, books, politics, law and the blues. He was accepted to law school and before going he suffered a car accident going completely blind but that didn’t stop him. He went to law school, finished and worked up to being the head legal council for the Seminole Tribe of FL. I learned a lot from him and the one important thing I will always learn from him is to never give up.”
Everett Osceola said his uncle is credited with helping start Indian gaming, met six U.S. presidents, and survived an assassination attempt.
“When I feel I want to give up, I always look up to him and his strength, also his sense of humor,” his nephew wrote. “His heart will always belong to his family and to his Tribe. Mvto Unc!”
Shore was named to the American Gaming Association’s Hall of Fame in 2021 and was given the Government Attorney of the Year Award for 2020 by the American Bar Association’s Section on Environment, Energy and Resources.
From Chickee huts to billion dollar hotels
Shore was born a member of the Seminole Tribe’s Bird Clan on Feb. 16, 1945, on the Brighton Seminole Reservation, northwest of Lake Okeechobee. He and his six siblings helped his parents, Frank and Lottie Shore, raise cattle.
It was an inauspicious start for a man who would later generate billions of dollars for the tribe. The family lived primitively under traditional Seminole chickee huts with thatched palmetto fronds for roofs.
Ambitious and motivated to better his tribe, he graduated from Okeechobee High School in 1963. After being blinded in the automobile accident in 1970, he persevered and earned a law degree in 1980, the first member of the Seminole Tribe to become an attorney.
Shore was instrumental in the establishment of “Unlimited Bingo” in Hollywood, Florida, at the tribe’s casino in 1979, a move that opened up Indian gaming to other tribes. A series of court decisions validated the Seminole Tribe’s early gaming venture, and it became the forerunner of the Indian gaming movement throughout the United States. Indian gaming now accounts for more than half the nation’s total gaming revenue.
In 1987, he negotiated a landmark water rights compact that defined the rights and obligations of the Seminole Tribe and the State of Florida involving tribal water rights and the environment on the three Seminole Reservations.
Beginning in 2000, he developed the Seminole Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos in Tampa and Hollywood, Florida. They both opened in 2004 under the leadership of Seminole Gaming CEO Jim Allen, whom Shore hired.
Later the tribe would buy the entire Hard Rock International enterprise, the first acquisition of a global corporation by a North American tribe.
“Mr. Shore was by far the most humble individual that I’ve ever worked for in my career,” Allen said in a statement. “He would never take credit for all of the amazing things that have occurred under not just his leadership, but his wisdom.”
Earlier this year, a legal team headed by Shore won a massive jury verdict of more than $800 million on behalf of the children of the Seminole Tribe of Florida against Wells Fargo Bank. The jury ordered Wells Fargo to pay for mismanaging a trust fund set up for the minor children.
He had parting words in a published pamphlet distributed at his funeral.
“My work here on this earth is not done but God has other plans for me and his Kingdom so for now I must say see you later to my loved ones and this world which I truly loved,” he said. “I’m just going home to another world embracing loved ones and dearly missed, for now I say see you later my friends and family.”
Hundreds of tribal members and non-tribal members attended a graveside funeral service and burial for Jim Shore on Monday, Sept. 1.
Shore is survived by his brother, Eddie Shore; sisters Geneva Shore, Nancy Shore and Elizabeth Shore; nephews Paladin Willie, Everett Osceola, Duane Jones, Elton Shore and Robbie Shore; and nieces Stacy Jones, Beverly Shore, Brenda Shore and Holly Shore, plus many great-nieces and -nephews and cousins.