Derek Bruce, Orlando Office Managing Shareholder, Gunster

April 2026 — Invest: spoke with Derek Bruce, Orlando office managing shareholder of Gunster, about the legal and policy pressures that come with Central Florida’s rapid growth, from housing affordability to emerging compliance needs in healthcare, immigration, and data privacy. “You can do good and do well at the same time,” Bruce said.

How would you describe the past year for Gunster’s Orlando office, and how does that reflect the broader momentum in Central Florida’s business and legal environment?

Gunster’s Orlando office has experienced meaningful growth over the past year, consistent with what we have seen across the firm statewide. That momentum has shown up across several core areas, including litigation, real estate, corporate work, and land use.

Across the I-4 corridor, continued development activity is creating a steady stream of work that often begins with real estate and then expands into land use approvals, corporate structuring, tax considerations, and other transactional needs. As the regional economy grows and diversifies, the legal questions that follow are becoming more complex, and we are positioned to meet that demand with the right experience and capabilities. We expect that trend to continue.

As your firm continues to expand its footprint and practice capabilities across Florida, how is your office contributing to the firm strategically?

Central Florida’s ongoing population growth is a practical marker we watch closely, including the widely cited pace of roughly 1,000 new residents a week moving into the region. New residents bring demand for housing, jobs, services, and the infrastructure that supports daily life. For clients, that demand translates into expansion decisions, new projects, and a growing need to navigate regulatory requirements and community expectations.

Gunster is one of the state’s largest business law firms, and our Orlando office contributes by pairing local knowledge with the depth of a statewide platform. We operate as a firm that practices without walls, meaning we bring in the lawyer best positioned to meet a client’s needs, regardless of where that lawyer sits across the state. Some work is inherently local, like land use, where success depends on understanding local development codes and processes. Other work, like many tax or M&A matters, is less localized and allows us to draw on specialized expertise across offices to serve clients efficiently.

With Orlando’s growth across sectors like healthcare, hospitality, and technology, which industries are showing increased legal complexity?

Healthcare is a major one, and it is evolving quickly as organizations adopt new technologies and new delivery models, including telemedicine. Clients want guidance on how to adapt while staying compliant, particularly as rules and regulations continue to shift at both the federal and state levels.

Immigration has also moved sharply to the forefront over roughly the past year to 18 months. Employers want clarity on how to protect their organizations and their employees while remaining compliant in an area of law that is changing rapidly.

Consumer privacy is another growing area. Companies and consumers are increasingly sensitive about how information is collected, used, and protected, and we have spent more time advising business clients on privacy policies, data security, and the operational steps needed to respond to heightened expectations.

Technology and AI are reshaping the legal ecosystem. How is Gunster incorporating legaltech and AI tools while maintaining quality control and ethical use?

Technology has changed the mechanics of legal work in fundamental ways. What once required physical document rooms and manual review is now digital, searchable, and far more efficient. That efficiency is valuable, but it cannot come at the expense of accuracy.

There have been public examples of lawyers relying on AI outputs without verification and facing serious consequences when citations were wrong, authority was mischaracterized, or sources were not real. Those situations underscore why AI must be treated as a tool, not a substitute for legal judgment and professional responsibility.

Our approach is to use technology to help gather background and distill information, reducing time spent on preliminary research. But every output still requires verification, source-checking, and the application of practitioner experience to ensure the final work product meets the standards our clients expect and the ethical obligations attorneys carry.

With new companies and new investors being attracted into Orlando, what trends are you seeing in corporate formation, merger, and acquisition activity?

While I am not a corporate lawyer myself, what I observe from colleagues is increased activity driven by organizations that want a Florida presence and recognize the strength of the local economy. In many sectors, there are established businesses with strong reputations and relationships, and those can create meaningful barriers to entry for companies trying to build from scratch.

As a result, we are seeing more interest in acquisitions, mergers, and strategic partnerships where larger organizations align with well-established local or regional businesses. That approach can provide a faster path into the market and a more immediate operating platform, while giving existing businesses access to scale, capital, or broader networks when the fit is right.

How has land use demand evolved as zoning, environmental considerations, and governmental regulations continue to shift?

Central Florida is balancing continued growth with a changing economic profile. The region has long been anchored by tourism, but it is increasingly diversified, including technology growth connected to institutions like UCF and the Central Florida Research Park, alongside an expanding tourism corridor.

That growth is putting pressure on infrastructure, and two issues rise consistently to the top: housing affordability and transportation. Demand for housing continues to climb, but supply is not expanding at the same pace, and that mismatch drives higher prices and strains affordability. Transportation challenges compound the problem as growth increases congestion and raises the stakes for long-term planning.

From my perspective, government has not fully caught up to the pace of need. There can still be resistance to approving the volume and variety of housing and broader infrastructure required to match the region’s trajectory. Local leadership has been focused on these issues, and they will remain central priorities for the next generation of leaders. With leadership transitions on the horizon in both Orange County and the City of Orlando, the next set of elected officials will inherit the same core question: how to keep approving smart growth quickly enough to meet demand, without compromising quality of life or long-term resilience.

How does being invested in the community shape the way you approach the work you do in Orlando?

Many of us are not just advising clients in a community, we live here. I moved to Orlando when I was 7, returned after school, and plan to be here for a long time. That perspective affects how I approach the work I do locally.

When you are part of the community, you want to look back years from now and be proud of the role you played in a development, a land use project, or a business transaction that shaped the region in a constructive way. When practitioners are invested in where they live, you can do good and do well at the same time, and that is when communities thrive and become places where people and businesses want to be.