"The emotions of jealousy, envy and greed are so powerful. They can overcome so many people," said attorney Steve Yerrid, who helped Florida topple the tobacco industry and was awarded $200 million from the $13 billion settlement.

      "They can overcome so many people. I've learned in the past year the power of money and how it can destroy a person if you allow it. I've seen it first hand because of the amount of money bestowed upon me. But I've also learned that the emotions of courage, love, and hope will always prevail over these emotions, because good will always triumph in the end."

      Yerrid is true to his word. Despite the wealth and despite the power that goes along with being a highly successful lawyer, he has stayed true to himself and never forgets the importance of helping others. It almost seems as though he is bent on giving away every penny that he earned in the tobacco settlement.

      Over the past few months, he has given contribution after contribution to worthy causes around the area. Recently, he gave $25,000 to Make-A-Wish foundation, $10,000 to the Children's Cancer Center Building Fund, $75,000 to The Lawton and Rhea Chiles Center for Healthy Mothers and Babies and $50,000 to Plant High, his alma mater, to improve the lighting condition on the field, just to name a few.

      "That money is blood money," he said. "It is the direct result of millions of deaths due to tobacco. Children, parents, husbands and wives all had to die in order for the tobacco industry to earn the money they paid me. What kind of man would I be if I used that for my own self-interests?"

      What makes his charity all the more amazing is, in order for Yerrid to earn his money he had to lose everything. Many people may not realize this, but when trial lawyers file a lawsuit, all expenses for the trial come directly out of the lawyers' pocket.

      A complex lawsuit can drag out over a long period of time, causing the cost of paralegals, experts, travel, depositions and research to mount. All of these costs are a gamble; if a lawyer wins it can pay off big, if the case is lost, the lawyer will not get back any of these expenses.

      It took the resources of a team of 11 law firms to battle the tobacco industry, and even that was almost not enough. Several weeks before the trial ended, Yerrid, who had to use millions of his own money during the trial, had to mortgage his house so that he could continue to fight.

      "That house was the last thing I had on this planet," explained Yerrid. "We went up against the tobacco machine and it was without a doubt the most titanic, absolute gargantuan struggle I have ever been through in my career.

      "Big tobacco would drive practitioners representing the victims into the ground," he continued. "One of their members once said that they didn't have to win the case, only out-spend them. That's almost a direct quote. I wanted to quit so many times. But I couldn't. They say in Braveheart that you may live if you run, but you won't really win. I had to fight on."

      This sense of chivalry that is instilled in Yerrid's heart, this sense of fairness, is something that Yerrid learned at an early life. His parents, Fay and Charles, got divorced when he was only seven, so at this young age he was thrust into the role as man of the house. Because jobs were hard to find, his mother had to move around a lot to stay employed. Before he moved to Tampa at the age of 13, he had already lived in Charleston, where he was born on September 30, 1949, West Virginia, Richmond and Pittsburgh.

      "We finally stayed in Tampa because it was such a wonderful and warm place to live," he said. "We needed to start a new life."

      It was here in Tampa that Yerrid began to realize that everything in life had a silver lining. He realized that even when things looked bleak, good will always triumph over evil.

      "I used to fish a lot, right near Channelside Dive (back then 13th Street), but I never really caught anything but catfish," said Yerrid "I used to think there were no good fish to catch. Then I remembered one day catching a huge speckled trout and realizing that there were good fish in there. I think that's where I began to realize that everything is not necessarily bad, that there are good things in everything if you look hard enough."

      It was also while growing up in Tampa that Yerrid's love for the law first began to grow. As a youngster he was captivated by the Perry Mason show. In Perry Mason, it seemed to Yerrid that good always triumphed over evil, that justice always prevailed. That concept of equality is what first appealed to Yerrid.

      "The law is the great equalizer. Everyone is equal in the eyes of the law, regardless of where they come from, who they are or how much money they have," he said "The law sees the right and wrong, nothing else."

      In 1967 he went to college at Louisiana State University where, despite its strong reputation as being strong academically, Yerrid learned more about partying than anything else.

      "I can't say that I emphasized academics when I was in college," he explained "I can say that college (LSU) almost cost me a great education. I had a very unique time getting into Georgetown Law School."

      Yerrid graduated from LSU with a degree in History/Political Science. His plans at the time were to travel to the Virgin Islands and work for Hess Oil, digging channels for super tankers, a job his stepfather Frank Peterson was able to get him.

      Before leaving for the Virgin Islands, he stopped and saw his father, whom he was reunited with as a teenager.

      "My father asked me whatever happened to wanting to go to law school," reminisced Yerrid. "I told him I was going to take a year off and then go, but my father was a smart man. He knew that if I took a year off I would make money and never go back to school. He convinced me to change my mind, but the problem was that my grades weren't good enough."

      At the time, his father worked at the Washington Post and had some connections. The former counsel for the Washington Post happened to be the dean of Georgetown Law School, and Yerrid's father knew him. They set up a meeting with the dean and Yerrid was accepted to Georgetown Law School, but he would be on probation-one bad grade and he was gone.

      "The reason I've been so successful has nothing to do with the attributes I posses," he said "The reason I've gotten to this point is because so many people have given me breaks in life. People have believed in me during times when I long stopped believing in myself. I'm very lucky."

      His first semester he took Criminal Justice. Not only did Yerrid do well, he earned the highest grade in the class, which had 680 students.

      During law school, Yerrid worked 55 hours a week. He did everything from running elevators in the Senate to lobbying for non-profit hospital.

      After graduation, he planned on working for the Department of Justice and going after organized crime, but one of his best friends had recently gotten a job at the law firm of Holland and Knight and convinced Yerrid to take a job there, despite a job offer from an oil company that would have paid four times what Holland and Knight could offer.

      "Money isn't everything in life. It's about doing what's right," he said.

      He worked for Holland and Knight for ten years, it was during this time that he first leaped into the national spotlight during the Sunshine Skyway Bridge trial, defending the captain of the freighter that crashed into the bridge.

      In 1980, a 680 foot bulk freighter knocked down one of the center spans of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, killing 35 people. The event made national news and the trial was thought to be an open and shut case. It was simple, the captain was guilty.

      "John Germany, one of the founders of the Holland and Knight who became my mentor, told me I could have the case," said Yerrid " He told me I couldn't win, but I would get a lot of publicity."

      Not only did he get a lot of publicity, he also won the case. The captain was found not guilty and Yerrid made headlines all over the world.

      He left Holland and Knight shortly after the trial and started his own firm called Stagg, Hardy and Yerrid. During this time his then wife Vee gave birth to his now 13-year-old-son, Gable.

      "The firm was very small, but well represented," said Yerrid "We had 11 lawyers, but I soon realized that it was too big, so I left that firm and helped start the firm that I'm in now. Yerrid, Knopik and Krieger."

      Over the course of his career he has won many high profile medical malpractice, products liability and wrongful death cases.

      Due to the filing of these cases, he became responsible for ATM machines being well lit, after he represented a boy attacked outside a local bank. He is responsible for making child toy companies pay closer attention to the safety of their product and won a $4 million settlement for the children of a man who was killed by a train when his vehicle was trapped in a pothole at the railroad crossing.

      "After winning all these cases, I got the feeling and the abilities I sought when I was young," he said "To give back was lost. I don't have supreme power, but I am a vessel of someone who is better than us. I have the talent that can give back by using the law."

      It is because of this talent that the late Governor Lawton Chiles and Attorney General Bob Butterworth chose him to join a select group of lawyers labeled the "Dream Team" and take on the Tobacco Industry, which had been previously unbeaten. It is also this talent that got him selected to Inner Circle of Advocates, a group of the 100 most successful plaintiff lawyers who gather once a year to discuss ways to better serve their clients.

      Most of all, it is this talent that has enabled him to help so many people in this world.

      "There are two things I am sure of in life," said Yerrid. "I'm going to die and giving is better than getting. I dare anyone to try to prove either one of those wrong."