Jordan Maglich, 35

Much of Jordan Maglich’s law practice centers on winning back large payouts for victims of fraud schemes, and his “Ponzitracker” blog — an online resource that tracks the proliferation of Ponzi schemes nationwide — has drawn accolades from the American Bar Association Journal and Lexis Nexis. 

But Maglich, a commercial litigator with Quarles & Brady in Tampa, has not lost sight of what the American legal system aspires to offer: justice for all — rich, poor and everyone in between.

“A couple of years ago, I volunteered for the Clemency Project,” he says. “It was something created by the Justice Department and President Obama that was trying to rectify some of the crazy sentencing disparities that occurred in the 1970s and '80s for low-level drug offenders. I took on a couple of cases and ended up getting pretty significant relief for some of them.”

One of Maglich’s Clemency Project clients, Ignatizo Giuliano, had received a sentence of life in prison for a nonviolent drug offense when he was in his mid-50s. In 2016, at age 81, he was granted his freedom, with Maglich receiving word from the Justice Department that Obama had issued a clemency degree for Giuliano.

“He was going to die in prison,” Maglich says. “I analyzed his case and calculated what he should have been sentenced to under the current guidelines. And he was one of the less than 10% of folks that President Obama granted clemency to. It’s all too easy to get wrapped up in your wins and losses of millions or billions of dollars. I actually made a difference in someone's life, and I was pretty proud of that.”

Maglich, as an attorney who spends a lot of time on litigation, says one of the toughest parts of his job is staying even-keeled, regardless of the outcome of a case. “Winning feels good,” he says. “If someone were to tell me that they don’t worry about losing, and it doesn’t matter about winning, I’m not sure I would believe them.”

Commercial litigation also requires an insatiable appetite for knowledge, he says.

“Law is one of those professions where you could get a hundred different cases, and no matter how long you’ve been practicing, they all most likely involve a hundred different issues," he says. "You’re learning every day, on every case.”