by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
Look out the window of Michael Goodbread’s office on the 22nd floor of the SunTrust building and you’ll be treated to a mighty spectacular view.
Turn around and look at the opposite wall, and you’ll see something else. Or not see something else. Books.
Law libraries these days are as commonplace as a hand-cranked flivver. They haven’t totally disappeared, but they’re proving tougher to find than Judge Crater.
“The practice of law is becoming such a paperless profession,” said Goodbread, the latest addition to the firm of Fowler White Boggs Banker in Jacksonville. “When I came up, when you walked the halls of a law firm, there were books stacked everywhere you turned around, floor to ceiling.
“But we don’t even have a library here. The cost of updating those periodicals is exorbitant. The publishing cost of putting things in court papers is expensive so everything’s on computer.”
Goodbread became the fifth attorney working at Fowler White’s Jacksonville office when he moved over from McGuire Woods in late May. One of the oldest firms in the state, Fowler White’s headquarters is in Tampa, where the first office opened more than 60 years ago.
The firm has more than 200 attorneys in nine Florida cities, including St. Petersburg, Fort Myers, Tallahassee, Orlando, Naples, West Palm Beach and Bonita Springs.
“The firm has wanted to get into Jacksonville for many years,” said Thomas Dearing, managing shareholder of the Jacksonville office and a member of the Commercial Litigation Practice Group. “Obviously there’s a booming interest. There are a lot of good businesses and firms that want to get into Jacksonville now.
“Fowler White’s been looking for a fit here for a number of years. A group of us was fortunate enough to meet up with them a little over a year ago when we first met, and we opened this office in early February.”
The firm represents a broad array of clients, including Fortune 500 companies, emerging public companies, small businesses, entrepreneurs and individuals in Florida, across the United States and around the world.
Goodbread majored in political science at Vanderbilt University and graduated from the Stetson University College of Law in St. Petersburg.
He took a job clerking with Martin Ade Birchfield & Mickler of Jacksonville and then took a job with the firm when he graduated from law school in 1993.
“It was a boutique transactional firm that essentially did real estate and corporate work,” said Goodbread. “Clerking there and beginning my law practice there developed my interest in real estate and corporate work.”
The Martin Ade group was folded into McGuire Woods in January 2001. He was a partner in the firm when he left in May to join Fowler White.
As a shareholder in the Corporate Practice Group, Goodbread practices “exclusively for individuals and entrepreneurs and entities, helping them execute business transactions.
“I have an emphasis on merger and acquisition work, franchise registration and disclosure work, with joint ventures and similar transactions.”
The advent of computers certainly has made a big difference in the way those transactions are researched. But that doesn’t mean it’s a dot com world for everyone, especially those who became accustomed to more traditional ways. To the traditionalist, going paperless in the practice of law seems a lot like trying to sculpt on a hologram.
“My colleagues who came up behind me are better suited to computers,” said Goodbread. “I was about the last class at Stetson and probably the last part of the generation that got through law school researching and writing the old way. Which included finding people to type your papers for you.
“People didn’t have computers when I went through law school. Those who were fortunate enough had word processors. But most people didn’t have one.
“Now they require the kids to have laptops loaded with all sorts of software. It’s definitely different.”