Spotlight On: Trevor Ross, Managing Shareholder, Fisher Tousey
February 2025 — In an interview with Invest:, Trevor Ross, managing shareholder at Fisher Tousey, talked about the opportunities that the growth in population in North Florida brings for the company’s estate planning, tax planning, corporate, real estate, and litigation practices.
What were the most important milestones for Fisher Tousey in the past 12 months?
We moved our physical offices just over a year ago. Our main office is in downtown Jacksonville in the Brooklyn Riverside area. Brooklyn is an up-and-coming, fun area that continues to grow. There are cranes all over the place, which is exciting. We had been on the same half-floor for around 15 years, but with the exciting growth that we have experienced as a firm, we decided to build out an entire floor in the same building. We also opened a new office in St. Johns County. Our Ponte Vedra Beach office is technically in St. Johns County, but we opened another office in the southern part of North Florida. It has been a fun challenge to expand our geographical footprint.
What are the most noteworthy trends and market dynamics in the legal sector of Greater Jacksonville?
Jacksonville is an interesting legal market. In a previous role at Bank of America, I hired law firms all over the country, so I am familiar with the legal communities in quite a few places. Jacksonville stands out because there are no huge law firms in town for the size of the city. We are big enough to have an NFL team but there is not a single law firm with over 100 local lawyers. There are instead a lot of smaller local firms that have been part of the community for a long time.
Given the amount of business that is conducted here, one could expect more firm consolidation, but that has not happened. Fortunately, it has created a fantastic local bar, as everybody knows each other and is cordial. The fact that the legal bar in Jacksonville is more community-minded makes it a hidden gem.
What practice areas do you expect will be the main drivers of growth for Fisher Tousey in Jacksonville?
We are a niche firm in some ways. We started 45 years ago and for the first 20 to 25 years, we were a tax- and estate-planning firm. We have built out other practice areas over the past 15 years to service our high-net-worth clients and their businesses. We already do as much or more of the estate- and tax-planning for high-net-worth individuals as any other firm in North Florida, but that is still a growth sector for us given the influx of people moving to the area. That includes not just Jacksonville but also St. Johns County and Amelia Island.
There has been a surge of population moving here from the Northeast, including New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. People are coming for both weather- and tax-related reasons. They need help navigating their tax- and estate-planning needs. Our business thrives on word of mouth, so when we do good work, clients talk to their new friends and our phone rings. That will be a growth area for us as we try to dominate that market.
Eight years ago, we didn’t have a litigation department. We were referring out all our clients’ litigation cases, and we realized it was a great opportunity for growth. We started hiring litigators and now have a thriving practice, both in fiduciary and estate/trust disputes as well as general commercial litigation. We have eight litigators and demand for our services continues to grow.
Additionally, our corporate and M&A divisions are busy. We continue to hire new, young talent as well as lateral attorneys to help with the demand there. It will be interesting to see how interest rates affect the deal volume over the next 12 months. There has been significant dry powder on the sidelines waiting to see interest rate movement as well as the impact of the electoral landscape on tax laws.
We have also hired more real estate lawyers over the past couple years, and I expect our real estate group to continue to expand. We have five partner-level attorneys dedicated to our clients’ commercial real estate needs. We even provide white-glove residential real estate closing services for our clients, and that is definitely an area that has seen increased demand.
What are some political and regulatory changes that Fisher Tousey is closely monitoring due to their potential impact on clients?
Because of our heavy tax focus, we keep a close eye on the tax landscape. There are big tax laws set to expire soon, so the rollback of tax laws that are favorable to many of our clients could be threatened. We have been doing some pre-planning to at least be ready for that. For instance, the size of the exemption for the estate tax is bound to expire, so many of our wealthy clients do a lot of planning to prepare for that so they can transfer wealth to the next generation as efficiently as possible when they pass. Many people will be subject to the impact if that expires, so we will see how that plays out.
What are some legal mistakes that businesses or individuals commonly make that could be easily avoided if they sought legal advice from Fisher Tousey?
There are various ways that our clients would be in better shape if they called us a bit earlier. Asset protection is one area that comes immediately to mind. There are many ways to protect one’s assets from potential creditors, and most are not complicated. Talking to an attorney, learning the tricks, and then following-through on the advice can be incredibly valuable.
We also do a lot of transactional work for buyers and sellers of businesses. We constantly implore our clients to give us a call before signing a letter of intent. Many businesspeople are great negotiators who expect to hammer out the high-level points prior to calling a lawyer to save some money and headaches. Nevertheless, a lot of problems can be avoided by talking to your lawyer before a letter of intent is agreed upon, since that puts real restrictions on how a transaction can be structured.
We often represent clients on the sell side who have built their businesses from the ground up. That sale will probably be the main liquidity event of their life. Many firms can handle the paperwork to close the deal. Thanks to our heavy tax focus and our estate planners, Fisher Tousey provides more value to our clients by structuring transactions not only to minimize taxes on the deal, but also to facilitate the transition of that wealth to the next generation. Carefully structuring the transaction can be incredibly beneficial to an entrepreneur experiencing a liquidity event to keep more of that wealth in the family and not with Uncle Sam.
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