Nooney and Gare is a plaintiff’s personal injury firm at 3535 Hendricks Ave. Henry Gare advanced to partner May 3.
HOW DID THE FIRM START?
Scott Nooney started the firm in 1997 after leaving Harris Guidi Rosner & Mordecai P.A.
HOW MANY EMPLOYEES?
Two partners, two associates and 12 staff members.
WHAT IS GARE’S BACKGROUND?
“I’ve been with Scott for two years,” said Gare. “Before that, I was with a firm at the beach, Anderson and Howell for a couple years. Out of law school [University of Miami], I started practicing with Fred Abbott doing plaintiff personal injury.”
WHERE IS THE FIRM HEADED?
“The two associates are out of law school,” said Nooney. “They haven’t been out a year yet. I really see us continuing to grow. I would like to see us branch out into different areas other than just personal injury. I started off at the State Attorney’s Office for four years. I did criminal defense for about two-and-a-half years and did a little bit of family law at the same time. So I’ve got kind of a broad background. I did a little bit of workman’s compensation before I got into doing personal injury exclusively. I would kind of like to be a more balanced firm and provide some other services to the community.
“The reality is in today’s time your personal injury client will have a minor criminal problem to deal with. You’ve got a client that ends up in an accident and needs assistance on that issue.”
HOW MUCH GROWTH
IS IN THE FUTURE?
“How big, I don’t know. But I really do see us continuing to grow,” said Nooney. “At this point, we probably would have more staff but for the fact that we’re very limited on space. We can’t pack any more in here. We need to make some decisions about where we‘re going to physically move.”
WHERE WOULD NOONEY AND GARE RELOCATE?
Nooney owns land off Philips Highway north of Emerson Street. “I have plans and it is basically ready to build. It would be a 10,000 square foot building. However, I’ve had some people try to discourage me from building there because of the concern that that portion of Philips Highway is not going to appreciate the way that other parts of Jacksonville will.”
IS IT A STRATEGIC LOCATION?
“Our clients, primarily, are coming from the north and west side of Jacksonville,” said Nooney. “We like to be somewhat user-friendly. It’s a much better location for them than out in Mandarin or even downtown. Downtown is a pain in the neck to get to, especially having to park and one-way streets and having to get up in a high rise. It’s difficult for them. Our clients are very happy to just hop out of their car and walk right into our office.”
“We like this area, the Hendricks and Philips Highway location because we are very close to downtown and the courthouse and other firms,” added Gare. “But at the same time, we’re far enough away that our clients don’t have any problems with parking and getting to us physically. Of course, all of them are hurt and don’t like to deal with that. We get the comment a lot that they appreciate that they don’t have to go up in a high rise.”
WHAT’S THE FIRM’S APPROACH TO PRO BONO WORK?
“We’re really the last stop on the personal injury route,” said Nooney. “If we won’t handle a case, there isn’t anybody that’s going to handle it. If somebody calls, they’re going to talk to an attorney. A lot of firms, they have people that screen calls. They know right away if the person was the at-fault driver, which we have a lot. They say thanks, but no thanks. We really spend quite a bit of time talking to people that have no case at all, and we know it at the front end, just trying to educate them what the law is regardless of the area. With my background, I can talk fairly knowledgeable about most things. We try to make it a habit of doing that.”
— by Glenn Tschimpke