A new law firm created by some of Florida’s biggest names has doubled in size in less than two months.
Lawson Huck Gonzalez already has three locations in Miami, Tampa and Tallahassee, and it has grown from five to 10 attorneys.
The firm was created by Justice Alan Lawson, who recently retired from the Florida Supreme Court. He is the only former Justice in private practice who was on the court when it was being transformed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Justice Alan Lawson’s retirement from the Supreme Court made us start thinking about creating a different kind of law firm built from the ground up and comprised entirely of like-minded allies in the civil justice reform movement,” Paul Huck Jr. told The Florida Record. “We had each played a part in the transformation of the Florida judiciary whether as judges, justices or serving as general counsels to governors while several hundred outstanding judges were being appointed.
“Those experiences have given us some unique insight into how to best advocate before these courts. We suspected the market would respond well, and it has.”
Huck is the managing partner of the firm’s Miami office. He is the husband of Judge Barbara Lagoa of the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals and the son of U.S. District Court Judge Paul Huck.
Jason Gonzalez, the other name partner, most recently served as general counsel to the governor. He was the chief advisor on the appointment of four Florida Supreme Court Justices
The primary focuses of the firm are going to be litigation, appeals and administrative hearings for both private businesses and state agencies.
“We have the confidence of the DeSantis administration which has engaged our firm for a number of cases defending challenges to the governor’s policy priorities,” Huck said. “We are also defending two challenges to property insurance tort reforms, and the Florida Chamber of Commerce engaged us last month to defend the landmark 2023 tort reforms signed last week by the governor.”
Speaking of those reforms, Huck said every tort reform adopted in the last 30 years has been challenged.
“The 2023 tort reform bill is the most aggressive in my lifetime, so we’re certain there will be numerous challenges,” he said. “Typically, the plaintiffs’ lawyers have used the Florida Constitutional right to access to the courts as a centerpiece of the constitutional challenges, as well as due process and single subject claims.
“We will be ready for whatever they bring, and we are not afraid to ask the new majorities on our appellate courts to recede from bad precedent.”
For such a new firm, it seems to be growing by leaps and bounds.
Sam Salario, a former Florida Second District Court of Appeal judge, has joined the firm as a shareholder and will run the firm’s Tampa office. And the firm also recently added Caroline May Poor to the roster. She clerked for U.S. District Judge Allen Winsor and is known for her previous career as a journalist at The Daily Caller and Breitbart News before she attended law school.
Huck said the firm will be announcing three more new hires in the coming weeks.
“Lawson brings a lot of wisdom and insight to the team,” Huck said “Sam Salario is similar in that he was part of some great improvements to the Second District Court of Appeal when he was on the bench.
“We were invited to speak to two groups of corporate general counsels and the response was amazing. We’re being hired by at least one new client every day, and that has necessitated our hiring five more lawyers in the first 60 days.”
A fourth office will be announced soon, and Huck suspects the firm will have offices in every major city in Florida within two years.
“We’ve launched a small firm platform,” Huck said. “But because we were founded by several luminaries in the Florida legal profession, we’ve had no problem beating out the AmLaw 100 law firms for the top associates.
“The University of Florida law student ranked first in his class just chose to work for us over all the mega firms recruiting him. Our two newest associates were top three in law school and editors of the law review in addition to completing top judicial clerkships.”
Founding shareholder Amber Nunnally said the reputations of the firm’s attorneys are attracting high-profile clients.
“We were very optimistic about starting this type of law firm, but I don’t think any of us expected to double in size in the first two months and gain this many new clients,” Nunnally said. “The market has responded enthusiastically to this combination of lawyers teaming up, and we believe clients are coming to us with the most exciting cases happening in the state because they know our lawyers have elite credentials, winning records and are passionate believers in these issues.
“For now, we’re just focused on winning for our clients. In these first two months, we’ve had three court rulings and our clients prevailed in all three.”