Excerpt from Obituary:
Mario P. Goderich was born in Santiago de Cuba, Oriente, Cuba. While still living in Cuba, his parents enrolled him in high school at Massanutten Military Academy in Virginia. After graduating, he returned to Cuba where he attended the University of Havana School of Law. He received his Doctor of Civil Laws degree in 1957 and practiced law in Cuba with the firm of Castellanos & Goderich.
In 1961, Judge Goderich immigrated to the United States where he took a position at IBM to support his family. He then attended the University of Miami School of Law where he graduated in 1966 with a Juris Doctor, after two and half years. Upon graduating, he took a position as the associate law librarian at the University of Miami School while he going through the naturalization process. In 1969, Mario became an American citizen and was admitted to The Florida Bar. He later became the University of Miami Law Library director and was an instructor of law.
In 1975, he became the first Cuban-American appointed to the Court of Industrial Claims, then to the 11th Judicial Circuit in 1978, and to the Third District Court of Appeal in 1990. He was the first Cuban-American to sit on all three of those courts. He was one of the founding members and first president of the Cuban-American Bar Association.
Read his full Obituary here.