I was born in Houston, Texas, and I spent my earliest years bouncing around between Quantico, Virginia, Newport, Rhode Island, and Camp Lejeune, North Carolina while my dad was a Marine Corps Judge Advocate. I’m the second oldest of four boys. After my dad’s military service ended, my mom and dad and my three brothers and I moved to South Florida, where my brothers and I were raised. We grew up on a fresh-water lake and within minutes of the Atlantic Ocean, so people are shocked when they hear that I rarely visited the beach and never once went fishing in my youth. Basically, I grew up playing sports year-round, as did my brothers. From as early as I can remember, I wanted to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. When I wasn’t at practice or a game - or when my brothers and I weren’t in an emergency room due to a homemade skateboard or bike ramp mishap – I basically played sports in my yard by myself or with my friends or brothers. I did a lot of listening, watching tv, and observing those whom I idolized, and I tried to emulate others. The way Terry Bradshaw and Dan Marino threw the football; the way Boris Becker served and volleyed; the way Bucky Dent turned a 6-4-3 double play; the way Steve Caballero skated a half-pipe; the way Rod Carew and George Brett swung a bat. If I couldn’t get one of my brothers to play “catcher” for me in the yard, I’d tape a rectangle strike zone on a brick wall by our garage and pitch a 9-inning game. I rode my bike to a local high school where I’d hop the fence and kick field goals all day long in mock game-winner and overtime scenarios, or I’d stand with my heels on the end line in the end zone and try to “flip the field” by turning over a booming spiral punt. I religiously watched “This Week in Baseball” and would beg my parents to let me stay up to watch the first half of Monday Night Football, inclusive of halftime highlights. I’d never played tackle football until my freshman year in high school, and although I didn’t quite make it to the NFL, I ended up with a “full-ride” football scholarship to play for the Iowa Hawkeyes, whose uniforms were adopted by legendary Coach Hayden Fry to mimic the Steelers. (I have the Hawkeye’s “Tiger Hawk” logo tattooed on the back of my left shoulder.) For some reason, I could kick and punt a football a decently long way, but my lack of pinpoint accuracy in the later fall months of a frigid Big Ten season zapped my NFL hopes. I red-shirted my first season but then was a four-year starter as place-kicker or kickoff guy. I was also our punter for about half of my red-shirt season in 1992. My first college game was in the “Kickoff Classic” in the old Giants’ Stadium at the Meadowlands, just outside of New York City. While at Iowa, I wore eye-black, and I lifted weights and ran stadium steps with our linebackers and tight ends in the off season so that my teammates saw that I was not the prototypical kicker. My name was called by the likes of Brent Musburger and the late Keith Jackson in various nationally-televised games! 

I met my wife, Sarah, at Iowa. She was a Pi Beta Phi, and I joined the Pi Kappa Alpha (“Pike”) Fraternity. Sarah is Canadian but hates beer and hockey and is not a big fan of Canadian Music Hall of Famers Barenaked Ladies. One of our very first dates was to see an obscure band from Colorado named Big Head Todd & The Monsters at the Iowa Memorial Union in 1993. (We’ve seen them together around 75 more times since then, in probably 10 states.) 

During our football bye week of my second-to-last season at Iowa, I took the LSAT, and the next thing I knew I was back in Florida and in law school after graduating from Iowa. My brother and law partner of 20 years, Eric, was two years ahead of me at Stetson College of Law, and my dad and mom made the trek across the state from West Palm Beach to St. Petersburg often, as my dad frequently taught trial advocacy at the law school, and mom is always by dad’s side.

Sarah and I were married in Des Moines in the summer of 1997, and we just celebrated our 26th anniversary. Between my second and third years of law school, I spent the summer in Quantico, Virginia, at the U.S. Marine Corps’ Officer’s Candidate School (“OCS”). I was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Marine Corps upon graduating from OCS. After law school and the Bar Exam, I went on active duty as a Marine Corps Judge Advocate, and Sarah and I spent the next six months at The Basic School (“TBS”) in Quantico, Virginia, where all Marine Corps officers endure another six months of basic officer training once they are commissioned as officers. I rather enjoyed the challenges presented by the physical aspects of both OCS and TBS, where considerable time is spent in the field, on “live-fire” ranges, humping large amounts of gear around, performing land navigation, and doing intense physical training like the obstacle course and combat course. After graduating from TBS, I spent approximately three months in Newport, Rhode Island at Naval Justice School, which is the specialty school for Naval, Coast Guard, and Marine Corps lawyers. I was lucky enough to be stationed at Camp Pendelton, California for three years, which is halfway between San Diego and Los Angeles. We lived on base in officer housing and could see the Pacific Ocean from our second story windows. I did long PT runs with my Marine Corps comrades through the foothills of the base, and at times while dodging slithering rattlesnakes. We mostly got to wear utilities (“Cammies”) for work, but things were more formal in the courtroom where everyone wore “Charlies.” There was, however, nothing more prideful and defining of the Marine Corps’ history and values than wearing the distinctive dress blue uniform and carrying the officers’ Mameluke Sword for ceremonies, parades, funerals, mess nights, and the Birthday Ball. 

Our daughter, Ava, was born at the Camp Pendelton Naval Hospital, and after graduating from Florida State University in May 2023 is now in graduate school at Hunter College in New York City. Ava’s love for the ocean likely comes from the fact that she clocked a few thousand miles in our jog stroller on Sarah’s weekday runs and our long Saturday morning runs together along the Pacific Ocean through Oceanside and into Carlsbad and back. 

I held a variety of billets while at Camp Pendleton, but I spent the better part of my last year on active duty as a trial counsel (military prosecutor). I got to try a few contested courts-martial cases, as well as a number of contentious Administrative Separation hearings. I handled several Article 32 hearings (similar to grand jury proceedings in the civilian legal system), and I was the trial counsel on numerous special courts-martial cases where guilty pleas were entered, each of which required me to put on a sentencing case. 

Sarah, Ava and I (and our Westie named Riley) moved back to South Florida after I received an honorable discharge, and I joined my mom and dad and Eric at our firm. After settling in back in South Florida, we later had our son, William, whom we just dropped off for his first year of college in Tallahassee. Will continues to perfect way more skateboard tricks than I could ever fathom doing. Our youngest, Mae, is a sophomore in high school, and she is an accomplished dancer. (As a dance dad, I continue to mortify Mae with the promise of one day soon entering the “parent improv” dance competition at one of her many dance conventions. But, thankfully for Mae, the truth is: I’m not sure my knees or back could actually endure it.) For me, although the challenges of sports and the military are things of the past, I started doing CrossFit 12 years ago and haven’t looked back. I suppose there’s still something appealing to me about competing and encountering and facing challenges that require both physical and mental fortitude.

I have been practicing law with my dad and Eric for just over twenty years now. My mom runs the office and makes sure the three of us know where we’re going and what we’re doing. Always watching over us and dad and keeping us on the right path, as she has done her entire life. I sure am lucky that I get to see my mom and dad, and at least one of my brothers, almost every day. Upon reflecting, it is safe to say that much of what I have learned in life comes from confronting and overcoming the challenges and adversities faced in a lifetime of sports, but behind everything I do and everything I stand for comes from a life of listening, observing, and trying to emulate my mom and dad in their relationship (53 years of marriage), their work ethic, their compassion for others, their parenting, their sacrifices, and their life lessons.

Eric Romano is a Board Certified Trial Attorney with Romano Law Group in West Palm Beach, Florida. He received his B.S. degree in Business Management from Florida State University in 1993, where he played football for Coach Bobby Bowden, and he earned his J.D. degree from Stetson University College of Law in 1997.

He began his career in 1997 as a prosecutor with the Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office. As an Assistant State Attorney, he prosecuted a wide variety of criminal cases in the Misdemeanor, Juvenile, Domestic Violence and Felony trial divisions. He left the State Attorney’s Office to join Romano, Eriksen & Cronin in 2001, which was renamed Romano Law Group in 2007. He has gone to verdict in more than 125 civil and criminal trials.

Eric currently serves as President of the Florida Justice Association and is a Past President of the Southern Trial Lawyers Association and the Melvin M. Belli Society. He is also a member of the American Association for Justice, The National Trial Lawyers, the Palm Beach County Bar Association, The Palm Beach County Justice Association and the Palm Beach County Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He is a Life Member of both the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He concentrates his practice in the areas of personal injury/wrongful death, criminal defense, and commercial litigation, and he frequently lectures in the areas of both criminal and civil trial practice.

Eric is admitted to the Florida Bar, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida and the Middle District of Florida, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. He is Board-Certified by both the Florida Bar and the National Board of Trial Advocacy in Criminal Trial Law and is “AV” rated by Martindale-Hubbell.