Before Brinkley Morgan partner Kenneth Gordon led the firm's family law department in Fort Lauderdale, he majored in advertising and marketing, acquiring skills that have come in handy when selling his client's story to a judge.

"I'm like a producer of infomercials," Gordon said. "I produce this infomercial called 'Your Point of View' to show to the court, and I have a limited amount of time to do it."

And he has a sense of humor.

"Those 60-second TV commercials at the Super Bowl cost a million dollars," he quipped. "So stop complaining about your bill."

Gordon has had many career twists, unlike his father—a doctor, who identified his profession at age 9.

Teenage Gordon was a musician, while college Gordon worked on marketing firm J. Walter Thompson's Burger King account, and graduate Gordon became disillusioned with his job at Miami South Florida Magazine, bought a Honda Civic, and drove to Boulder, Colorado, where he worked in the restaurant industry.

"I did what anyone would do in that moment," Gordon said. "Which was, 'Well, I'm not sure what I want to do with my life, but I'm pretty sure I'd like to be somewhere where I can ski while I'm thinking about it."

After a few years, Gordon resolved to open his own restaurant. But first, he'd gain experience with a big company—3,000 miles across the pond.

As a director of operations for a new American-style sports bar opening in England, Gordon's job was to scout locations, then help design, build, staff and operate the place. He selected Manchester city center after a year of traveling around and becoming enamored with the nation's complex sense of humor.

"There's kind of a word game that people play when they talk about things," he said. "I wish I could remember some, but I remember just always trying to figure out what was the joke to it."

It wasn't all fun and games, though, as Gordon discovered that the security the owners had hired were part of a local gang, who eventually began to suggest wage increases and dictate staffing. And while Gordon visited family in Florida, the restaurant was robbed and its bookkeeper was attacked.

The experience highlighted an interesting difference between the United States and England.

"There's no gun violence there, so it's a much different culture that way," Gordon said. "However, while you certainly weren't going to get shot or killed anywhere near as likely as you were down here, the chances of actually getting into a fight in a bar and getting punched or cut were much greater."

Gordon, then in his early 30s, realized he didn't want to open his own restaurant. He sat in on friends' law classes at the University of Florida and thought: "I'm going to use all this restaurant experience and become a restaurant and nightclub lawyer."

After returning to the U.S., taking the LSAT and getting into law school, Gordon experienced a minor setback: There was no such thing as a restaurant and nightclub lawyer.

"That was momentarily stunning,"he said. "But the great news was, after that, I had the only real epiphany I've ever had in my life about what to do."

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Controlling the uncontrollable

The way the cold, hard law intertwined with the psychology and emotional baggage of family law was fascinating to Gordon, whose own parents divorced when he was 13, temporarily sending him to boarding school.

"One of the most daunting things for children going through this is the incredible encroachment of the unknown: 'What's going to happen to me?' " Gordon said. " And also an incredible amount of loss of control."

Now, more than 20 years after creating the University of Miami's family law society, Gordon heads Brinkley Morgan's family law department, where 10 attorneys help people "control that uncontrollable thing."

The same things that make Gordon's field interesting also make it uniquely messy. Whereas civil and criminal cases are "like a game of Monopoly," in Gordon's view, guided by established rules of evidence and procedure, the family arena is more like Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the Places You'll Go."

"Sometimes you will, and sometimes you won't," he said. "I have to be ready to go into court. Sometimes the rules will be enforced, and sometimes they're not, because the judges in family law have a huge amount of discretion."

That means knowing all the rules and protecting the record for appeal, but also knowing they might go out the window, depending on the unique combination of personalities and subjective viewpoints involved in the case.

Gordon says he's also learned a thing or two about human nature.

"Everybody has an incredibly common desire," he said. "They want to be heard. You don't have to agree, you can take an opposing point of view, but they want to at least know that you've heard them and know where they're coming from."

Gordon's "best win ever" came from a case he'd tried to avoid—several times.

A former U.S. Marine Corps captain working in the private sector had called from abroad about a "breathtakingly bad" agreement he'd entered into with his soon-to-be ex-wife. The deal included permanent, non-modifiable alimony and was upheld by the court, and it also meant the majority of his earnings went to his ex-wife.

It seemed a sad but unwinnable case, so Gordon said no—until several calls later, when he found himself submitting.

"He got me," Gordon said. "It was one of those where I was shaking my head at the time, but I just felt so bad for him that I took the case."

Because the court had declared the agreement valid, Gordon had to argue that the document was somehow ambiguous and unenforceable.

Basically, it was time to produce an infomercial.

"I had to show the court not only that this agreement wasn't enforceable but it was really put together in bad faith, and I had to have the court start to not like this lady and not be inclined to help her out," Gordon said. "And obviously, I wouldn't be telling this story, if after a one-week trial, the court hadn't bought my arguments and set the agreement aside."

The client remarried after paying alimony for a few years, while all other terms of the agreement were reversed.

Gordon's sensitivity has also seen him thrive at the Broward Partnership for the Homeless, a nonprofit organization that helps people rebuild their lives with accommodation, clothes, dental services and counselors.

Elected board chair in January, Gordon said he's discovered that, in addition to South Florida's homeless population, there's an even larger group to worry about: the pre-homeless.

"They're a paycheck or two away from homeless," he said. "There's an amazing amount of people where it wouldn't take much for them to all of a sudden not be able to rent, pay for their car and all those various things."

Gordon now lives with his 92-year-old father, a former world-renowned plastic surgeon.

"We went through some rough patches when I was younger, but it's great," Gordon said. "It's really up-close-and-personal to aging and the circle of life and all that, but I can't say enough: It's really been a pleasure to be able to have that kind of relationship with him."

Kenneth A. Gordon

Born: Miami Beach

Education: University of Miami, J.D., 1997; Florida State University, B.A., 1983

Experience: Partner, Brinkley Morgan, 1999-present; Attorney, Buckner & Shifrin, 1994-1998

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