The Go-To Lawyers When Winning's a Must

Theirs are the discreet ears privy to a family’s most intimate affairs. Theirs are the voices of calm and reason counseling both the aggrieved and the accused. Above all, they are the rays of hope when things look darkest—the ones to call when you’re only allowed one call. These are Southwest Florida’s go-to lawyers. To find these A-list advocates, we approached several trusted local attorneys for a list of their esteemed peers. These same names appeared on everyone’s short list. Their specialties vary, but these counselors share a few common traits: high ethical standards, terrific intelligence and a passion for doing what they do best.

Victoria Ho
Asbell, Ho, Klaus & Goetz, Naples
Family Law
Call it the Great Race: In certain Gulfshore circles, it’s understood that the difficult decision to divorce will be accompanied by an immediate attempt by both parties to secure the services of family law attorney Victoria Ho.
Ho has an outsized reputation among her peers for her sharp legal moves and her fierce advocacy on behalf of her clients. She is also a well-regarded family law scholar, with her writings on community property, alimony and child support read by legislators and law school students alike.
Naples is unique, Ho says, in that its disproportionate wealth leads to an equally disproportionate number of “large and complicated” divorces, which keep her services in the spotlight. Ho gives a lion’s share of credit for her success to the firm’s talented attorneys and a top-notch staff. Founding partner John Asbell is also Ho’s partner in marriage; he hired her after facing her in the courtroom.
“I couldn’t do it alone,” she says. But with the combined power of the firm, Ho’s clients can expect representation “at a level unsurpassed in Southwest Florida.”

Casey Wolff
Paulich, Slack & Wolff, Naples
Immigration Law
Public debates on immigration law move fast and get overheated quickly, but the immigration process itself is a slow-moving bureaucracy, one that requires participants to navigate an alphabet soup of forms and filings. Naples attorney Casey Wolff walks clients expertly through the immigration system, from agricultural workers seeking nonresident visas to hotels recruiting restaurant staff from overseas. 
Wolff says he thinks of himself as a teacher as well as an attorney, and his clients receive an education in Immigration 101. Through lectures and opinion pieces, both nationally and locally, Wolff talks to the public about the myths and realities of immigration practices. Although not shy about saying the immigration system is broken, Wolff is also optimistic about its fixes. Scary talk about “illegals” benefits no one, Wolff says, particularly not those whose labor is already enriching our local economy. In the privacy of Wolff’s offices, those workers and others will find a kind word, a fresh cup of coffee, and an eager advocate ready to explain the law to them.

Wilbur C. Smith III
The Wilbur Smith Law Firm, Fort Myers 
Criminal Defense
 Wilbur Smith was 12 when he saw his first defense attorney in action on the television show The Verdict Is Yours. Until then, he never realized one could get paid for arguing others out of trouble. From then on, he never wanted to do anything else. The Fort Myers native (and former mayor) won his first murder trial in front of a jury when he was just 28; his 37-year career includes more than 7,500 criminal defense cases.
He’s been an advocate for those at the center of some of Southwest Florida’s biggest scandals, including a 1976 case in which he convinced the state to drop charges against shrimpers accused of smuggling 80,000 pounds of marijuana; and the Stadium Naples influence-peddling case of the 1990s, in which he represented former Collier County Commissioner John Norris. In 2004, Court TV aired his defense of Donald Moringiello, a Fort Myers man accused of murdering his wife. When the jury deadlocked 5-1 in favor of acquittal, the network aired a second trial in 2005. (Moringiello was convicted in that second trial, and an appeal is underway.)
Smith knows that many of his clients are those others consider reprehensible, which only makes him more determined to get them a fair trial. “You have to have a passion for giving a voice to the underdog,” he says.

Jason Korn
Cohen & Grigsby, Naples
Complex Litigation
For a good litigator to undertake a complex case, it isn’t enough to be able to organize hundreds of thousands of relevant documents, although attorney Jason Korn is very good at that. What clients pay him for, he says, is his ability to think creatively about the case. He has to always see that mountain of documents with fresh eyes, even as a suit goes on for months or years, looking, always, for “that one linchpin that will turn a client’s case.”
Korn moved to Southwest Florida from New York in 1995. In 1997, he became involved in the Gulfshore’s own version of Bleak House—a suit over whether a private guardhouse in front of the entrance to Barefoot Beach Preserve “chilled” the public’s access to the park. Seven years later, a judge agreed with Korn’s clients, the homeowner’s association, that it did not.
It was just the sort of lengthy and complicated argument that Korn relishes. Although most cases in his field settle before going before trial, and although he says a good attorney will never take a weak case to court, it’s always thrilling to stand before a judge against a worthy adversary in a tough case. “I love litigation,” he confesses. “I love what I do.”

Jerry Berry
Berry, Day, McFee & Martin, Naples
Criminal Defense
Whether they’re rich and powerful, or just feel powerfully wronged, lots of criminal defendants make their first post-arrest phone call to Jerry Berry. A skilled cross-examiner who might have stepped from central casting, Berry has garnered lots of ink for his high-profile defenses of everyone from a Benson & Hedges heir accused of blowing up his family to Rush guitarist Alex Lifeson, involved in a little dust-up at the Ritz a couple of years ago.

Edward K. Cheffy
Cheffy Passidomo Wilson & Johnson, Naples
Civil Litigation
Tenacious, detail-oriented and hyper-articulate, Ed Cheffy also has the sort of savoir-faire that gives him an undeniable edge in the courtroom. In addition to his accomplished partners, the firm he co-founded includes a stable of young associates learning litigation techniques from the master. And for years he lent his mentorship to the Community School of Naples’ formidable mock trial team.

Kevin G. Coleman
Goodlette, Coleman & Johnson, Naples
Real Estate and Banking Law
Got to get the deal done? Admiring peers say Kevin Coleman can put an air-tight agreement together over the phone in the time it would take most of us to find a scrap of paper and a working pen. Coleman understands the ins-and-outs of complex financial transactions, and he knows even more than your favorite condo commando about the arcane workings of home-owners’ associations.

Joe B. Cox
Cox & Nici, Naples
Estate Planning
There’s something about Joe Cox that just makes people want to trust him with their money. For decades, the estate-planning guru has been a quiet confidant for many of Naples’ most wealthy residents, customizing complex arrangements for their assets and smoothly tying up the financial loose ends that will let their legacies live on.

Michael G. Fink
Fink & Boyle, Fort Myers and Naples
General Practice
This energetic attorney is up for pretty much any legal tangle, particularly if it involves a good tilt at a windmill. Last winter, when the local media pored over clues to the identity of the paramour of a local power figure who had stepped down from his job at FGCU, the answer was suggested in a suit that Fink had filed a few months earlier on behalf of one of the woman’s colleagues, alleging the romantic relationship hurt the man’s own chances for career advancement.
Although the scandal has left the front pages, the suit is ongoing.

Yale T. Freeman
Yale T. Freeman Law, Fort Myers and Naples
Criminal Law/Complex Litigation
There are rainmakers and there are noisemakers, but it’s the rare attorney who can navigate both personas. A one-man show, Yale T. Freeman made a splash in Southwest Florida in the early 1990s with a suit that involved a downed airliner in the Everglades and the low-wage mechanic who was about to take a fall for his corporate employer. As with a recent controversy over Bibles in Collier classrooms, it’s also inevitable that the phrase “ACLU attorney” is often followed by Freeman’s name.

Patrick E. Geraghty
Geraghty, Dougherty, Edwards, Goldberg, McQuagge, Bosseler & Morgan, Fort Myers
General Practice
Part of Fort Myers’ charm is that in many ways it retains the feel of the small Southern town it once was, and that sense is most palpable in its law offices and courtrooms. (Some days we expect to see Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch passing through.) For decades, Geraghty has led his clients expertly through legal matters in Lee, earning a reputation not only as a stellar litigator but as one of Fort Myers’ most gentlemanly of gentleman attorneys.

Robert W. Goldman
Goldman Felcoski & Stone, Naples
Estate Litigation
The reading of the will makes for good dramatic possibilities, but mostly on the silver screen. In the real world, 98 percent of estates settle smoothly. When they don’t—and when it gets ugly—feuding heirs of means often call Bob Goldman. Goldman was forced into the spotlight a few years ago as the attorney for two of Ted Williams’ children, who produced a document saying the legendary Sox slugger wanted to be cryonically frozen. These days Goldman is back to his usual discreet efficacy.

Thomas Grady
Grady and Associates, Naples
Securities Law
With astonishing regularity, con men ride into the Gulfshore with get-rich-quick schemes, and with astonishing regularity, the already wealthy put money behind their claims. When promised returns don’t come, bilked investors turn to securities attorney Thomas Grady. In recent years, Grady has taken on a boiler-room brokerage playing dirty with clients’ money, and he was one of the most aggressive pursuers of the more than $120 million that now-jailed Ponzi-scheme king David Mobley swindled out of Gulfshore investors in the 1990s.

Richard C. Grant
Grant, Fridkin, Pearson, Athan & Crown, Naples
Real Estate Law
Richard Grant has decades of experience with titles, deeds and liens in a region whose history is filled with stories of swampland someone wanted to sell. If moving to Southwest Florida means claiming your piece of paradise, engaging the services of Richard Grant means making sure you—and your heirs—really own it.

Robert D.W. Landon
Dunwody, White & Landon, Naples
Estate Planning
Although he isn’t as visible in the Gulfshore as fellow trust attorney Joe B. Cox, Dunwody comes recommended by no less an authority than Cox himself. Landon’s quiet approach to trusts, tax shelters and complex wealth distribution are perfectly in synch with Naples’ large sector of quiet wealth.

John E. Long
Long, Murphy & Long, Naples
Family Law
Emotions tend to run high in family law cases, and while clients need a tough advocate who also has the wisdom of Solomon, sometimes they also need a shoulder to cry on and a big box of Kleenex. They get all of the above at the offices of seasoned attorney John Long, whose family law practice includes a member of his own family—his son.

Julie Osterhout
Osterhout & McKinney, Fort Myers
Elder Law
As the population ages (baby boomers only thought they’d be forever young), elder law—like its geriatric medical counterpart—is a fast-growing specialty with too few qualified practitioners. Fortunately, the Gulfshore is home to one of its most highly regarded, Julie Osterhout. One of only five Florida attorneys to be named a fellow of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, she was also instrumental in founding the Alvin A. Dubin Alzheimer’s Resource Center.

George Vega
Vega & Brown, Naples
General Practice
Before the days of increasingly specialized practices, the phrase “my attorney” was understood to mean a gentleman who handled all legal matters for his clients—a Jeeves of jurisprudence. For decades, many have trusted Naples attorney George Vega with everything from routine contracts to messy civil suits, relying on his counsel and trusting in his discretion and unflappability.

Jennifer L. Whitelaw
Whitelaw Legal Group, Naples
Intellectual Property
Say you’ve invented the greatest thing since sliced bread—or at least since the Dice-O-Matic. Don’t give your good idea away without first consulting with intellectual property attorney Jennifer Whitelaw. An expert on everything from art and entertainment law to how to protect your Internet identity from cyber-pirates, she is also a phenomenal resource for clients who want to know more about this growing field.