WINTER 2016 INFLUENCE | 91 are you’re going to have a similar problem in New York.’ … We can provide more than a normal lobby shop,” Baggett says. Gus Corbella, the firm’s senior director of the Government Law and Policy practice in Tallahassee, often talks about having “a platform and a network,” as do his colleagues. Corbella, who is not a lawyer, uses the example of getting “an email from someone in the firm that’s having a client issue in Thailand.” “In five minutes, you’ll see a half-dozen responses” from other members of the firm, he says. “It’s a daily occurrence. Someone knows the ambassador, or someone else had the same problem. The degrees of separation are minimal.” Corbella, formerly chief of staff to Senate President Jim King, says he’s still wowed “to have folks, many you may have never even met, reach out and say, ‘Hey, I can help you.’ I think that speaks a lot about this firm. That’s how much the governmental practice is respected. They see that we get results.” Baggett adds: “The management of the firm is obsessed with collaboration. It’s not like the old-school law firm model of a hierarchy of senior partners who have arrived and are entitled. Here, everybody works. And there are a lot of good lawyers that would not do well here because they expect the firm to support them. Those are the people the firm does not look for, either on the lawyer side or the lobby side.” Hiring Greenberg Traurig influencers provides a buffer and mediator between sometimes competing factions within the same company, especially sprawling corporations, he says. “In the corporate world, the lobby side and the external affairs and general counsel side don’t always see eye to eye,” Baggett explains. “The lawyer says, ‘Boss, we got a problem. Let’s go litigate it and spend a couple million dollars for three or four years.’ The external affairs side says, ‘Let’s get the right lobbyist and resolve it in six months.’ The CEO looks at us as a combination in bringing us on. We can work better with the general counsel and the external affairs team.” His team also can tap into the talents of the firm’s premier litigators in Tallahassee, including Barry Richard. He’s known for representing then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential election challenge, and more recently he helped the Seminole Tribe of Florida win a legal fight against the state to continue offering blackjack at its casinos. “We use our litigators to help us with our lobby work,” Baggett says. “We’ll go to Barry and say, ‘here’s our issue; we need the legal perspective.’ And he’ll go in front of a (legislative) committee and explain it.” They also say they’re not fussed by stricter new rules proposed by House Speaker Richard Corcoran and adopted by the Florida House. They include requiring lobbyists to file an individual disclosure for every bill, amendment, and individual appropriation they are trying to influence. “While most people might consider it to be burdensome, it’s a transparency process,” Corbella says. “For lobbyists, transparency is not a dirty word. It’s our reputation and our clients’ reputation that we’re sharing with elected officials. It’s the bond that we share with those folks. If information is ever incorrect or misleading, you quickly lose your reputation in the process.” Picking up on that theme, Baggett refers to the random audits lobbying firms now are subject to. Last year was the first time under a 2005 state law that firms were randomly subject to audits. State law requires only that firms report compensation in ranges rather than exact figures, however, so it’s not known precisely how much money is involved in lobbying lawmakers. Baggett says he and others in the business sat down with staff to help devise an auditing program to delve into detailed recordkeeping, including revenues and time spent on executive lobbying versus legislative: “That was a big deal; they review every bill.” Greenberg also got a new CEO this year, Brian L. Duffy, who splits his time between the Denver and New York offices. The change in leadership hasn’t meant a change in firm culture. “As a matter of fact, it’s a reaffirmation of the culture: hardworking, collaborative, business oriented,” Baggett says. “There’s no class divide.” At the same time, Corbella says, “we’re all on first-name terms with our CEO. I don’t think you have a lot of law firms that have that kind of environment where you feel comfortable sending an email to your CEO.” Karlinsky left rival firm Colodny Fass to join Greenberg Traurig in 2014. “A number of things were attractive to me,” he says. “First, the team approach that we have, the support and backup. “But really, it was the national and international platform for what I do, specifically on the insurance side, and the ability to have a number of different offices in a number of different states and a number of different countries with people that can handle all aspects of a client’s needs, whether it be taxes or employment issues, mergers and acquisitions,” he adds. “They make Greenberg an attractive business partner for anyone that’s doing business in Florida.” Baggett says the 25th anniversary of the merger of his old firm with Greenberg Traurig will be this January. “We found a firm that recognized the value of providing advocacy services inside a law firm,” he says. “It’s about the value to the client, being able to provide full service.” PHOTO: Mark Wallheiser Photography Liz Dudek, with Gus Corbella
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