by Monica Chamness
Staff Writer
Kelly Mathis, a partner with the law firm of Gobelman, Love, Gavin, Blazs & Mathis, was recently re-elected as a member of the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Board of Governors. Mathis has served on the board for four years.
“There are still a lot of things that the board does that I would like to be involved in,” he said. “I would like to play a role in the direction of the Bar in representing the Bar to the community and other lawyers.”
Mathis has been a partner with the firm for several years, focusing on trial work, especially medical malpractice defense, personal injury and commercial litigation. His background is with the now-defunct firm of Baumer, Bradford & Walters. That firm merged into Smith, Gambrell & Russell after he left.
“I didn’t cause the split,” he said. “It just happened that way and I went with one of the two groups.”
Born in Tampa, Mathis attended Florida State University, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science, which he considered to be a stepping stone to a legal career. He earned a law degree at Vanderbilt University.
“I decided on law very early,” said Mathis. “In elementary school, I decided to shoot for a big career. The two I thought of were doctor and lawyer. I didn’t like blood, so the choice was easy.”
His motivation was to break out of the blue collar job cycle he was born into. He is the first in his family to attend college.
“It’s the accomplishment factor,” he said. “I wanted to aim for a high goal. My dad was always big on education because he didn’t have any.”
Growing up in South Florida, Mathis would spend his spare time working on a horse ranch with his father and dreaming about becoming a highly-paid attorney.
Mathis is president of the Jacksonville Association of Defense Counsel and is the membership chair of the Jacksonville Claims Association. As far as his involvement with the JBA, he maintains community outreach projects, such as the annual Holiday Project for seniors and HabiJax projects. One of his reasons for wanting to continue serving on the board is to develop new projects.
“Basically, I want to help respond,” he said. “I want to be on top of the situation because there may be new opportunities that we may want to get involved in. I’m not the chair of the participation committee but I do things on an as-needed basis.”
As a current board member, he takes part in policy decisions concerning the use of JBA resources and methods to respond to occurrences affecting the organization.
Mathis lives in Mandarin with his wife Donna, a registered nurse, and their four young daughters, Lauren, Alexandra, Addison and Sydney. When he’s not working on Bar projects or billing hours, he is running, hiking or jetskiing.