Fort Myers Beach · Southwest Florida
Counsel for the rebuilding of Southwest Florida.
Real estate, business and M&A, and fund formation — for the people putting capital to work on this coast. I live on Fort Myers Beach and practice throughout Lee County and surrounding Southwest Florida counties.
How fees work here
We scope it first
A first meeting to understand what you actually need — not a sales call.
You get a written price
A menu of fixed prices for the services you need, produced at that meeting.
Then the number holds
For the scope we agreed on. No hourly surprises.
Fixed fees cover legal services. Third-party costs — filing and recording fees, title charges, taxes, and similar expenses — are separate, and are identified in writing before the work begins. A fixed price assumes the scope we agree on; if the scope changes, we agree the change in writing first.
Why these three practices
One deal cycle, not three separate practices.
Raising capital, buying property, and selling a business look like different areas of law. On a coast that is rebuilding, they are usually the same client at three moments in the same cycle.
01
Raise
The fund or venture is formed and the capital is committed — entity structure, offering documents, investor subscriptions.
02
Deploy
The capital buys property. Acquisition, due diligence, title, and the development or redevelopment agreements that follow.
03
Realize
The asset or the business changes hands. Sale, recapitalization, or the acquisition of the next one.
Knowing how the capital was raised changes how the property should be held. Knowing how the property is held changes how the business is sold. Splitting that across three firms is where the friction lives.
Practice
What I handle.
Live Local & Capital Formation
Raising and structuring the capital that rebuilds.
- Fund formation for real estate and redevelopment capital
- Private placements under Regulation D, offering documents, and subscription materials
- Sponsor and investor entity structuring, operating and partnership agreements
- Live Local Act eligibility and the thirty-year affordability commitment
Real Estate
Commercial, investment, and residential.
- Acquisitions and dispositions, commercial and investment property
- Development and redevelopment agreements
- Leasing, easements, and title matters
- 1031 exchange structuring, coordinated with your tax advisors
Business & M&A
Buying, selling, and preparing to sell.
- Business sales and acquisitions, stock and asset
- Exit and succession planning for owner-operated companies
- Entity formation, governance, and owner agreements
- Commercial contracts and vendor arrangements
The change worth understanding
The Live Local Act moved the decision out of the hearing room.
Florida law now allows qualifying residential and mixed-use projects to be approved administratively when a share of the units is set aside as affordable for thirty years. For those projects, local height, density, and floor-area limits give way, and a rezoning or public hearing is not required.
That is a genuine shift in how development gets done here. It also moves the hard work from persuasion to structure: the affordability commitment, the entity, and a capital stack that still works when a share of the building is below market.
Structuring problems are the kind of problem I take.
Where this shows up
- Owners weighing whether a site now supports more than they thought
- Sponsors raising a fund to acquire and redevelop
- Investors underwriting a deal whose approval path has changed
- Buyers of businesses that own their real estate
For CPAs, brokers, and advisors
If you have clients on this coast, we should know each other.
A good part of my practice comes through accountants, brokers, insurance professionals, and other advisors whose clients hit a legal question mid-deal. I am direct about what I handle, quicker about what I do not, and I will tell you who is better suited when that is the answer.
No referral fees, in either direction. Not offered, not accepted. The work either stands on its own or it does not.
Start with a conversation.
Tell me what you are working on. If it is something I handle, we will talk about scope and you will leave our first meeting with a written, fixed price.