Daily Business Review, Business Observer, Law360, Palm Beach Post, and Tampa Bay Business Journal recently sat down with Bill Perry, Telese Zuber, and Bill Schifino to share the news that Icard Merrill officially joined Gunster on October 1, 2026. Gunster has expanded its footprint in Sarasota and Manatee Counties for the first time, opening offices in Sarasota and Lakewood Ranch and welcoming 28 new attorneys to the team. Gunster now reaches across 15 offices statewide, with more than 370 attorneys and 360 professionals.
Icard Merrill called the region home for nearly 75 years. Along the way, it built respected practices in real estate and property law, land use, condominium and community association law, construction, litigation, family law, and estate planning and probate. Those practices give Gunster's real estate, corporate, private wealth services and business litigation teams an even deeper bench.
Gunster CEO and Managing Shareholder Bill Perry is confident about where the region is headed. "I dare anybody to bet against it that Florida is going to continue to grow there for the next 20 years on [the west] coast in a very similar fashion as it happened on the east coast over the past two decades," he told Law360.
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