Lasting Legacy
Chapter II Coming to Miami
“Not knowing any better, I got married, and we decided we didn’t want to go back to St. Louis. Neither of us had ever been to Florida or California, which we thought were the glory states-we thought, ‘This is where we need to be.’ We could get away from the cold weather, and the climate, and the regimentation of growing up in a conservative city like St. Louis. So we flipped a coin, and it came out Florida-this was 1956. I had benefits from the GI program, so I was able to register in law school at the University of Miami and I became a lawyer.”
As he toiled away in pursuit of his law degree, Malnik approached yet another turning point in his life with the birth of his first two children, including his first son, Shareef, who would later take over The Forge empire. By the time Malnik crossed the stage to receive his diploma as a graduate at the university in Coral Gables, “Shareef and his sister were born, saying ‘Hi, Daddy,’ to me as I walked across the stage with my diploma.” Though post-graduation did not go according to plan (”I was disappointed because the guy I really liked so much in law school-we had always planned to be partners, we had won the moot court competitions, we were at the top of the class-opted not to do that,”) Malnik, with ample grit from his St. Louis upbringing, took a major risk in starting a practice in, of all places, South Beach.
“I opted to hang out at my shingle on Lincoln Road-605 Lincoln Road on Miami Beach-and I just remember sitting there with my feet on the desk most of the days.” It was during those dog days that Malnik began to build a name for himself as a top-notch attorney. In fact, says Shareef, “As a kid, you have a tendency to want to argue with your parents when you’re five years old. He wasn’t the easiest person to win an argument against.”
And, perhaps most importantly, the elder Malnik’s early days in law practice led to the beginning of a long-standing relationship with Jake Ehrlich, who at the time was perhaps the most famed defender in the United States. As a result of their close bond, Ehrlich put Malnik’s name and full-page photo on the inside cover of his enormously popular book, Never Plead Guilty, which put Malnik on the map around the country as one of the top young lawyers.
“I got a few cases, small cases, started acquiring a reputation as a result of winning them-they were the local bookmakers and all that-so I started a criminal practice, and I got highly recommended, and before you knew it, I had some substantial cases. I had met and participated in a couple of cases with a great lawyer that I admired, Jake Ehrlich, probably the best criminal lawyer in the country, and he was kind enough to care for me and take me on as a junior partner.”
With his career on the fast track to success, Malnik began to chase business pursuits out of his law practice, an idea that would pay off immediate dividends, and which would make a lasting impact on his children-one which is still felt to this day.
“Growing up in that brilliant environment, it has the same effect as law school,” Shareef says. “It changes the chemistry of your brain, makes you think outside the box, and hopefully I’ve adopted that and I try to think outside the box myself. Growing up with him, you learn integrity and ethics. You can’t learn that as an adult, you have to learn that at a young age. Buzz words like loyalty, doing the right thing, and dignity are really words that he lives by, even to his own detriment, he would never sacrifice his dignity or his honor.”
