Romney Rogers, Managing Partner, RMZ Law

May 2026 — Invest: spoke with Romney Rogers, managing partner of RMZ Law, about how the legal industry is moving from AI curiosity to AI implementation and how South Florida’s growth continues to reshape client needs. Rogers also discussed why a century-old firm still depends on the same fundamentals: relationships, reputation, and people. “You’re not racing too far ahead, but you’re not hanging behind either,” Rogers said.

What changes have you seen in the legal landscape over the past year, and how have those changes shaped the firm’s work?

I think this past year was what I call an AI 2.0 year. In 2024, AI felt like one of the more interesting ingredients of technology that everyone needed to look into, or should look into. This past year, it was more about implementation.

Just like many industries, the legal field is going to have to figure out how to use AI and how to be more efficient with it, and I do believe it is a good tool. Integrating it into all types of practices will certainly be the key to efficiency.

How do services need to evolve for today’s legal and business climate, beyond AI, including your firm’s multigenerational identity?

The legacy of our firm is 100 years, so we’ve been able to utilize relationships that have been built over all those years with a good reputation. We certainly are going to continue to do that, and hopefully continue for the next 100 years. That will take hard work and good relationships, and certainly professionalism and expertise. That keeps us going, but the economy of South Florida plays a big role in that. You need to have clients to get the work done and to move forward.

South Florida has grown exponentially, and there are all kinds of opportunities business-wise. The more people who come, the more people who will need legal services. Our book of business relies on people who need estate planning, people who have businesses and want to grow them, buying and selling things, and the real estate economy is part of that equation as well.

We face some challenges, like every business, including hiring good people. There are cultural things that need to fit in any hiring process. I’m trying to oversee the growth we’ve had internally and measure that against the growth of the economy. You always want to balance those two things out so that you’re not racing too far ahead, but you’re not hanging behind either.

As the region grows, how does that translate into demand for your services? Which services are gaining more traction?

The dynamic of the growth in our firm has been twofold. There have been new people moving into South Florida, and that has certainly been part of the equation. We do have expertise in estate planning. We’ve done it for 100 years. My son has his master’s, and we’ve just hired someone with an LL.M. in tax, so we continue to deepen our capabilities in that area.

We gain our clientele from a lot of sources. We’ve certainly been able to service our legacy clients and their families, and that’s always good. But people retire and move away, so you need to fill in. The growth of new folks moving into Florida with a great tax base, and certainly no estate tax, has helped our business in estate planning.

Real estate goes hand-in-glove with that, of course. And some of that growth results in other issues that can turn into litigation. We have those practice areas, and we do litigation in all those areas. That flexibility, being able to do both transactional work and litigation, has helped us continue to grow.

How do you help clients approach issues more holistically, especially when matters overlap across practice areas?

We always like to start with the obvious: people come to us with issues, and we want to work through their problems. We encourage them to resolve them early and soon, if possible, and efficiently, because of the expense and time factors of litigation.

For instance, the expertise we have in the estate planning area has allowed us to handle higher-end matters, larger dollars in terms of trust and estate litigation that unfortunately occurs. That has been a growing end of our business, to the extent that having the expertise matters. You need to know how to write or read a will or a trust and, at the same time, know how to go to the courtroom and convince either the judge or the jury that our interpretation is correct.

I think that area will continue to grow because of some unfortunate factors: families getting dispersed, not having as much contact with each other, and normal circumstances of life getting in the way. It creates miscommunications sometimes that result in people fighting. That’s just the dynamic of it.

Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for the firm over the next three to five years?

We continue to grow in terms of services that we’re concentrating on. As we look forward to the next 100 years, we think we will continue to add lawyers to the firm. I’m not going to be able to do this forever, so we’re looking to hire lateral lawyers who have a like-minded approach to practicing law and are a good cultural fit.

We want lawyers who can jump into the courtroom when necessary, but who also understand the transactional pieces.

We’re also making long-term decisions operationally. For instance, we’re taking a look at our processes and workflows, the forms and tools we use to make our work more efficient. 

Is there anything you’d like to expand on?

Going back to relationships, I’ve done some other work that I’ve been able to use, particularly my involvement in the community. Governmental service matters. I did that for nine years as a city commissioner. I was chair of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Chamber, and I’ve been involved in my Rotary Club and other boards. It gives you the opportunity to build relationships, and we’ve always tried to do that.

Building on the history of the firm is part of it, too. My grandfather started the firm 100 years ago. He got into politics. He was a state representative, and he was the author of the Homestead Exemption Act. We kind of have some fun with that, but it’s also meaningful because Homestead is a huge issue in our state. There are lots of issues that come up with not only the constitutional piece of it, but also the statutory piece, and the tax exemption piece. It’s a big issue right now with Gov. Ron DeSantis and the legislature.

That’s another piece of the business that I enjoy doing: building on those relationships because of the positions I was in. I’ll try to utilize that investment of time to help the firm and to keep our reputation solid. It never hurts to know more people.

You also want good partnerships within the firm, and you want to make sure there are good core values. We try to emphasize those, and hopefully, our clients will see that and want to continue to hire us and have us handle their business.