Trenam managing shareholder Marie Tomassi offers an overview of the midsize law firm with offices in the Tampa Bay area.

How big is your firm, where is it located, and what are its primary areas of practice and focus?

Trenam Law has about 80 lawyers with offices in both Tampa and St. Petersburg. We think of ourselves as a regional firm because we practice statewide and have a heavy concentration of practice in nine of the surrounding counties. We have cases spanning across Florida — from Jacksonville to the Panhandle and all the way down to Miami and Fort Lauderdale.

We advise clients on nearly everything you would expect a commercial law firm might handle. Our commercial litigation practice includes employment law, cybersecurity, appellate law, financial services and eminent domain. Our busy business transaction practice includes corporate representations, mergers and acquisition, tax planning and health care law.

Our bankruptcy practice is not as busy right now because the economy is strong, and it is a cyclical practice. We are fortunate to maintain trustee work and creditors' rights representation that keep the group busy even in a good economy.

We also have a large real estate group that handles lending transactions, purchases, sales, zoning and land use. And our private services group focuses on wealth and estate planning, probate litigation, family law and more.

Please explain your firm's governance structure and compensation model.

Trenam is governed by a five-person executive board, one seat of which is my role as managing
shareholder. The other four seats include our chair of the board, Tate Taylor, along with three other executive board members, Nelson Castellano, Gerald Davis and Mike Reeves. We have experienced practice group leaders who run our different areas of practice.

We also have very strong business professionals with key leadership roles who we could not function without, including Sharon Ellwood as chief operating officer, Lori Rabinowitz as director of marketing and business development and Richard Pollock as director of human resources and recruiting. All three are very strong leaders who are essential to our success as a firm.

We've been very lucky to have long-term relationships in most of our employment positions. We have professionals who have been at the firm for more than 30 years, which is very useful for the strength of our staff, lawyers and paralegals.

As for our compensation model, we strive to reward financial performance. We reward things that are objectively measured, such as billable hours and credits. However, we also reward nonfinancial contributions, including teamwork, cross-marketing efforts and involvement through community service or participating on boards or different charity events.

Providing hands-on service, being a good citizen and good team member are all highly valued, and we consider all of this in compensation.

What do you view as the two biggest opportunities for your firm, and what are the two biggest threats?

Looking out of my window in our St. Pete office, there is a building that is under construction and close to completion with two cranes on it. Looking to the left, there's another one, and St. Pete isn't alone. This region is booming, and it's one of our greatest opportunities. There are all kinds of plans and developments going on in downtown Tampa and throughout the Tampa Bay region. A lot of companies are moving here, including incubators and startup companies that are headquartering themselves in Tampa and St. Pete. The strength and growth of this region is our greatest opportunity.

Our second greatest opportunity is the strength of our relationships with people in the Tampa Bay region. We believe our greatest opportunities come from building relationships and truly trying to be on the forefront of our clients' needs. To achieve this, we get to know their business needs, and when it happens to be in a family context, their family needs. The goal is to be helpful in a proactive manner as we see their needs coming down the pipe — not just responsive or reactive.

Advancements in technology present us with a number of advantages, and the benefits draw a stark comparison to how things were done earlier in my 30-year career. For example, it used to take eight hours of searching bound books just to find an answer, but now we can use Westlaw or some other online service and have an answer less than 15 minutes later. While technology has been advantageous for us, it could also be a threat if the firm didn't stay ahead of the curve. We make it a priority to stay up to date and look into solutions that can make our practice and service even better.

Rather than fearing the change, we embrace it. For example, we recently modernized our office space to move past the traditional law office feel by incorporating collaborative and more tech-friendly workspaces. We believe in the long term and our people, and we know that we can't just rest on our laurels. There's a constant need to make sure we are building for our future.

After the recession hit, the prevailing theory was that midsize firms would start to see more work come their way from large clients who could no longer justify paying Big Law rates. What has been your experience?

Because of our emphasis on and success with relationship building, we've been fortunate to keep a nice pace of work over the years. It's also fair to say we've seen a pickup in work from clients looking for the same quality of service that they perceive big firms to be giving them, but at more reasonable rates.

Of course, we've also seen some fairly large firms come to town, and while some have done alright, others have come and gone because they did not have those personal and community relationships.

The Tampa Bay region is a different market because you have to be a part of it by spending time here, getting to know people and giving to the community. That's often harder for a larger firm that comes in from afar.

Being a home-grown and midsize law firm has been really helpful for us and has given us a lot more flexibility to effectively serve our clients and community.

Are your clients pushing for more alternative fee arrangements, and if so what types? Is your firm amenable to those requests?

Yes, we are amenable to those requests, and in fact, we are a little bit ahead of the request. We've used alternative fee arrangements both at our recommendation and the clients' request. We have built some different solutions and are suggesting them to clients when appropriate.

Surprisingly, we have not seen as much demand for alternative fee arrangements as we expected.

There is much debate around how law firms can foster the next generation of legal talent. What advantages and disadvantages do midsize firms have in attracting and retaining young lawyers, particularly millennials?

We believe we have an excellent platform for recruits because they can experience Big Law services in a midsize firm environment. We're not a Big Law firm, yet our lawyers would match up to lawyers anywhere.

We have the ability to educate younger lawyers and help them develop their legal tools of the trade. It's not enough to be a great marketer of your legal services; you have to be a great practitioner to succeed in law.

We have a team of professionals that is willing to put in the effort and time to teach our young lawyers how to do that.

We provide the latest software and tools of the trade, as well as support in business development and marketing efforts from our business professionals. We work to offer great benefits and a human resources team that helps them understand things like choosing the right insurance coverages based on their lifestyle.

We also have official and unofficial mentors, as well as firm- and practice-wide training. With millennials and young lawyers, I think more people want more flexibility and entrepreneurial types of opportunities, and at a midsize firm like ours, we can be flexible and work to find solutions that work for them. We're not locked into parameters that you might find at a larger firm. Our supportive culture helps young lawyers prepare and keeps them up to date as they advance through their careers.

We see our young attorneys as the legacy for the firm. Just like we built offices for the future, we have to build lawyers for the future, and we're willing to make that investment.

Does your firm employ any nonlawyer professionals in high-level positions (e.g. COO, business development officer, chief strategy officer, etc.)? If so, why is it advantageous to have a nonlawyer in that role? If not, have you considered hiring any?

We have business professionals in high-level positions, including our Chief Operating Officer Sharon Ellwood, Director of Marketing and Business Development Lori Rabinowitz and Director of Human Resources and Recruiting Richard Pollock. All three are very strong leaders in the firm who lead teams of other excellent business professionals.

It has been most advantageous to have these professionals involved in high-level positions because they bring a perspective that is usually a little different than what you normally get from lawyers. If you have read any articles on lawyer psychology, you know that we are two standard deviations more skeptical than the average bear. It's good to have people in the firm looking at things from a different perspective as attorneys and giving feedback and input. It's also not uncommon for lawyers to feel bound by tradition. One of the old-school things about lawyers and the rule of law is that you do things the way they've always been done, which is not necessarily best in today's marketplace and practice of law. Having people outside of the old ways lawyers do things is beneficial to help broaden our perspective.

All of our business professionals are well-educated in their roles. Many of our business professional roles require a high-level understanding and expertise and tools that many lawyers never studied, but are essential to the firm's success and day-to- day operations. They give us specialized knowledge that we need in key areas.

Our firm does not have any attorneys that strictly handle administrative needs. Everyone on Trenam's executive board is also a lawyer with a full plate of business and dedicated to client service, so we rely on our business professionals to help run the firm's business, and they do an amazing job.

What if any technology advancements have you made in your firm in recent years? What are the challenges in implementing tech changes?

We have kept a constant stream of software changeouts and updates to stay on the front-end of ourtechnology. One recent example was our adoption of a mobile time-entry system that permits the timekeeper to input time on their cellphones because so many of us work from home, at night and over the weekends. Rather than having to log in on a computer, this solution allows our attorneys to log time from anywhere on a cell phone.

We also have a new customer relationship manager that is proving to be very useful. We consistently are keeping up with new versions of the day-to-day software such as Microsoft Windows, Office and Adobe Acrobat. The challenge in implementing any new system is getting past the learning curve, but most of these systems are very intuitive now making it easier than it used to be. There isn't as much concern about the complicated nature of learning how to use new technology, but there is still a challenge with getting people over the learning curve and the fear of the learning curve.

What would you say is the most innovative thing your firm has done recently, whether it be internal operations, how you work with clients, etc.?

As I've said, relationship building is important to the success of our firm, whether it is with clients, the community or even with attorneys and staff within the firm. With that in mind, we are always looking for new, exciting ways to reach that goal. Internally, we have started having a surprise day every month based around some national day of recognition. In February, everyone in each office received a calendar invitation to go to the cafe for a strawberry celebration on National Strawberry Day, where we had strawberry shortcake and other treats. January was National Popcorn Day, and March is Chip and Dip Day.

We have other team building events of course, but the off-the-cuff request to get up from your desk and spend time with your coworkers has been great to foster relationships internally. Everyone needs a lift or something to bolster our spirit now and then, and this monthly surprise has been a fun way to provide that.

Externally, the firm launched our annual Business Trends event, for which we invite clients, valued trading partners and other community leaders to a topical panel presentation by business leaders. Last October's event included a panel with Jeff Vinik from the Tampa Bay Lightning, Charles Lockwood from USF Health and James Darnell with KLH Capital. The event gave attendees the opportunity to learn more about what is going on in our community and then to network with each other.

We are also implementing innovative tools that change how we work with clients. We are constantly listening to our clients and what their needs are, and from that feedback, we recently built a client portal that allows clients to more efficiently work with us.

Does your firm have a succession plan in place? If so, what challenges do you face in trying to execute that plan? If you don't currently have a plan, is it an issue your firm is thinking about?

Succession planning is an ongoing project here and at most firms. Even when a firm has a written plan, things can change. Life happens. At Trenam, our succession planning is more of an evolving awareness of where our needs are and whether we have adequately planned for them. With that frame of reference, we have a plan and are always working to improve it so that we can be sure we are always anticipating what may happen.

Beyond the specific plan, we are fortunate to have great, long-lasting stability from top to bottom. Our five-person executive board structure means that we are set up well to handle any unexpected changes from a leadership perspective. Also, our culture of supporting and developing younger attorneys as the future of our firm means that we have a strong base of capable leaders that affords us greater stability across the firm than a firm that doesn't invest as much into its junior talent.