Judge A. Jay Cristol, JD, Ph.D. (University of Miami Graduate School of International Studies), was Chief Judge Emeritus of the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida—where he was noted for several humorous opinions, including one written almost entirely in verse as a pastiche of Poe's The Raven—and an adjunct professor at the University of Miami School of Law. He served as Special Assistant Attorney General of Florida during the 1959, 1961, 1963, and 1965 sessions of the Florida Legislature.

Having enlisted in the U.S. Navy during the Korean conflict, he served 18 years as a Naval aviator, then joined the Judge Advocate General's Corps, graduating with distinction from Naval Justice School. In the 1980s, the Department of Defense sent him to the International Institute of Humanitarian Law at Sanremo, Italy, to lecture senior foreign military officers on the law of naval warfare. He retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain in 1988.

Remaining an avid aviator, he was a founding member of the National Museum of Naval Aviation at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, and of the Wings Over Miami Military and Classic Aircraft Museum, and served as an Angel Flight volunteer pilot, flying people in need of transportation to and from regional medical centers for treatment.