by Kent Jennings Brockwell
Staff Writer
With GrayRobinson being one of the faster growing law firms in Florida, it should be no surprise that Jacksonville became the site for the statewide firm’s newest office.
Located on the 16th floor of the Bank of America tower, the Jacksonville office is the ninth location for Orlando-based GrayRobinson.
Ken Jacobs, managing partner for the Jacksonville office, is one of five litigators at GrayRobinson in Jacksonville. Jacobs and the other attorneys, Dan Nicholas, Jason Burnett, Lee Haramis and Rick Plotkin, were all members of another firm before they decided to join the GrayRobinson team.
“We joined GrayRobinson because the firm has excellent depth in areas of practice that are important to our clients,” said Jacobs. “We felt that it would a tremendous opportunity to expand on the client relationships that we have here.”
Jacobs said joining GrayRobinson offered the litigators a “stabilized platform” to service their clients.
“Our clients have needs in Florida, not just in Jacksonville,” he said.
And with more than 160 GrayRobinson lawyers in Florida, Jacobs and his associates will now be a part of a statewide team of attorneys with different specialties.
“I think that GrayRobinson will provide us an opportunity to really expand our office because of the synergies our clients will have with the other offices in the firm,” Jacobs said. “We will be able to expand not only areas of practice but will also be able to bring on additional attorneys in other disciplines.”
As for growth at the Jacksonville office, Jacobs said he anticipates doubling the number of staff members within one year. Farther down the road, he would like to have up to 20 attorneys in the local office.
“We are looking to immediately add transactional attorneys, both corporate and real estate,” said Jacobs, “and we are also interested in other specialties such as tax law and estate planning.”
Currently, the firm works with cases regarding eminent domain, employment law, bankruptcy and financial restructuring, but Jacobs said they can practice most types of commercial or civil litigation.
And as more attorneys join the local branch of GrayRobinson, Jacobs said the firm will be able to spread out on their floor without having to move.
“We have an option to add additional space on the floor so our plans are to add additional lawyers to our office on the 16th floor,” he said.
Jacobs said the firm’s office can take up to three-quarters of the 16th floor of the Bank of America tower.
Jacobs said he likes having the firm downtown, adding that every other full-service law firm in the area has an office downtown. He also said it is important to be in close proximity to the courthouse.
“The Bank of America tower has been great,” he said. “We had previously worked there and it is really the premiere office building downtown. We enjoy working here.”