[Photo: Daniel Portnoy] |
Five years ago, Joseph H. Serota, managing partner at a then-25-lawyer firm in Coral Gables, thought he could benefit from hanging out with some managing partners of other Florida law firms. So, he applied to join an organization made up of the top decision makers from the state’s largest law offices. But the group turned him down, saying his firm, Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza Cole & Boniske, was too small.
The rejection reminded him of the old Groucho Marx joke about not wanting to be a member of a group that would have him. “This was more like I didn’t want to belong to an organization that didn’t want to have me,” Serota says.
Not long after, he helped create the Florida Association of Managing Partners for leaders of firms that employ between 20 and 100 attorneys. Now, with more than 20 firms represented, members meet quarterly to swap stories, share information and discuss the challenges they say are specific to midsized firms, including dealing with rising salaries and restless attorneys and figuring out the best way to provide employee health insurance.
“Our firms are very, very different in terms of our business practices, our client base, what we do, and yet the underlining issues are remarkably the same,” says member Ronald B. Ravikoff, managing partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Miami.
Among the issues midsized firms face: (See next page)
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