Florida Trend Magazine recently ranked Becker & Poliakoff as the 14th best law firm in the state. Founded in 1972, the firm has over 100 attorneys, offices in 15 Florida cities, international offices in Prague and Beijing and affiliate offices in Paris, Frankfurt, Bern and throughout Latin America. Daily Record staff writer Sean McManus met recently with Ken Jacobs, one of the leaders of the Jacksonville office, to discuss the firm.
THE BEGINNING OF THE JACKSONVILLE OFFICE.
It dates back to September when all the litigators of Edwards, Cohen, Jacobs, Haramis and Burnett — a firm that had started in 1995 — merged with Becker & Poliakoff to create the Jacksonville office. Lee Haramis, Jason Burnett and Jacobs have actually been together for 11 years in various iterations. “We started at Kirschner, Main, moved to Jacobs & Becker and stuck together ever since. We actually just celebrated the opening of the Jacksonville office and our new location in the Bank of America tower on Feb. 28.”
WHY DID YOU MERGE?
“Our practice involved a significant number of clients with statewide interests, so instead of farming the work out to firms in different parts of the state, we found a firm that could provide us with an infrastructure to serve clients statewide. Becker also provided us with new practice area expertise we were interested in like intellectual property, technology law, international law, and securities litigation. Becker has more offices in the state than any other firm.”
HEADQUARTERS
Ft. Lauderdale.
ARE THERE OTHER PRACTICE AREAS?
“We also have attorneys who practice homeowner and community association law, civil and complex commercial litigation, administration, bankruptcy and creditor’s rights, business, custom trade, construction, employment, environmental, entertainment and gaming, government, immigration, asset protection and estate planning, real estate, collections and foreclosures, land use, planning and zoning and telecommunications law.”
WHAT KIND OF LAW DO YOU AND THE OTHER FIRM LEADERS PRACTICE?
“I’m employment law and commercial litigation. Jason Burnett is bankruptcy and Lee Haramis is commercial litigation.”
THE CLIENT LIST
Burger King Corporation, CVS Pharmacy, Ikon Business Solutions, Columbia HCA Hospitals, Simon Property Group, which owns the Avenues Mall and malls all over the country, Regency Centers, Johnson & Johnson, Suddath and Zurich Insurance.
BIG CASES?
“Jason Burnett is working on filing a huge bankruptcy for an agency called the Risk Insurance Trust, which was created by the state to pool workers compensation premiums into a trust to help pay claims. They went under. I recently obtained a large judgment for Vistakon from an optical outlet chain in Texas after a dispute over products. And we’re working on an employment discrimination suit for Columbia Hospitals.”
TELL ME ABOUT THE CORPORATE CULTURE.
“We very much operate as a team when it comes to firm-wide decisions. We hope we have a collegial atmosphere. We think what separates Becker & Poliakoff is our entrepreneurial approach to solving clients problems. We look at how we can benefit the business as a whole. We are also very technology driven. We help clients statewide using our computer networking.”
EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND?
Jacobs went to Duke and then earned his law degree from the University of Florida. Burnett attended UNF and went to law school at FSU. Haramis did his undergraduate work at UF and attended law school at South Carolina.
ARE YOU TRYING TO GROW?
“Very much. This office is equipped to handle 11 attorneys. We’ve got six right now. We hired a new attorney, Dan Nicolas, after only four months. I would like to see us be at 20 attorneys in the Jacksonville office by year end.”
COMMUNITY SERVICE?
Jacobs is president-elect of the Jewish Community Alliance. Burnett is past president of the Jacksonville Bankruptcy Bar Association. Harimus does work for Wolfson Children’s Hospital and the Cummer Museum of Arts & Gardens. The firm also has several Chamber of Commerce and Cornerstone, Rotary Club and Jacksonville Jewish Federation members.