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Florida Law
Under the Gunster
Sen. George LeMieux's former law firm doesn't want politics interfering with its business.
When Gov. Charlie Crist tapped his trusted friend George LeMieux to replace U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, he also nudged the Gunster law firm out of its comfort zone. The 85-year-old firm has long focused on serving the state’s business community, but with former chairman LeMieux now in Washington the firm is finding itself more often in the world of politics.
After Crist picked LeMieux to serve the final 15 months of Martinez’s term, U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek, a Democrat who announced he’s running against Crist for LeMieux’s seat in 2010, criticized LeMieux for Gunster’s role in securing visas for foreign workers hired to help build high-rise buildings in Miami. LeMieux, who says he wasn’t involved in the immigration deal, will have to be careful now when addressing immigration issues in the Senate, says Clark Furlow, a law professor and the associate dean of Stetson University’s Tampa Law Center. “You have to preserve the appearance of propriety,” Furlow says.
Gunster also has been under scrutiny for a $500,000 contract it won from the state Department of Transportation just two weeks before LeMieux left as Crist’s chief of staff for a job at Gunster. The firm, at least through association, has also taken heat about the state’s proposed U.S. Sugar deal, particularly from former House Speaker Marco Rubio, a Republican who is challenging Crist for the party’s Senate nomination. Gunster has represented the sugar firm for many years, although LeMieux says he avoided involvement in the deal both when he worked for the state and when he moved to Gunster.
“George has entered a political arena, and controversy like that goes with the territory,” says H. William “Bill” Perry, Gunster’s managing shareholder. “But we’re not a political law firm. We’re not going to jump into the political arena. Our job is to continue to run our business like we have for 85 years and continue to serve the businesses of Florida.”
Before LeMieux resigned from the firm, all of his casework was assigned to other attorneys and all of his responsibilities as chairman passed to Perry. LeMieux no longer has a financial stake in the firm, Perry says. The weekly LeMieux Report newsletter, an online rundown of news and commentary from LeMieux, has been discontinued. Perry says it will be replaced by a similar newsletter, probably to be called the Gunster Report.
LeMieux started at Gunster in 1994 and left in 2003 to become deputy attorney general when Crist was attorney general. He also managed Crist’s campaign for governor in 2006 and served as the governor’s chief of staff in 2007. When he returned to Gunster in 2008, he told Florida Trend that he missed private practice and looked forward to “counseling clients” and learning about their businesses. When asked if he would ever leave Gunster for a government job again, he said he wasn’t sure, but “I’ve learned never to say never.” When LeMieux’s Senate term is over, Perry says the firm would welcome him back.
“This is George’s professional home, and we hope he’ll come home some day,” Perry says. “Obviously, as a former U.S. senator, there will be a lot of opportunities I assume will come his way. There were when he left as Gov. Crist’s chief of staff and he chose to come back here. We’ll see.”
