January 2019 will be recorded in the Jacksonville legal community’s history as a month marked by evolution for a well-known law firm and for one of its two founding partners.
Last week, the Tanner Bishop law firm became Bishop & Mills and Michael Tanner became a new partner at Gunster Yoakley & Stewart nearly 13 years after he and Thomas Bishop went into practice together.
They were shareholders in the Jacksonville office of a national law firm when they decided to strike out on their own.
Both described their latest transition as “entirely amicable.”
Tanner and Bishop left Holland & Knight in 2006 to establish a smaller firm serving clients needing complex civil and commercial work with a focus on trial practice.
“Ours was a true law partnership in the old-fashioned sense,” but after practicing for nearly 30 years, “we were both thinking about what we wanted to do next,” said Bishop.
“I wanted to stay independent, but Mike was looking for a platform that wasn’t boutique and he had an opportunity with Gunster,” Bishop said.
“I needed a bigger platform with statewide resources,” said Tanner, who’s now a top-tier shareholder at Gunster.
“Tom wants to remain independent, and he has my blessing, but I want to be focused more in Tallahassee and the Panhandle, and Gunster has an office in Tallahassee.”
The “Mills” in the new firm is John Mills, a board-certified appellate specialist.
He started The Mills Firm in Jacksonville in 2002.
As his practice grew, he took on partners over the years, forming Mills & Carlin, then Mills & Creed and Mills Creed Gowdy.
In 2010, he moved to Tallahassee to be near the 1st District Court of Appeal and the state Supreme Court and restarted The Mills Firm.
He serves on the Appellate Practice Certification Committee of The Florida Bar; he was chair in 2012-13.
Mills also has been chair of The Florida Bar’s Appellate Court Rules Committee and the Jacksonville Bar Association’s Appellate Practice Section.
Based until this month solely in Tallahassee, Mills and his three partners and an associate attorney now also will be working in Jacksonville.
“I’m from Jacksonville. I wanted to come home and work with my good friends and have offices in Tallahassee and in Jacksonville,” Mills said.
Bishop expects adding more appellate practice expertise to his firm’s substantial trial practice resources will open opportunities.
“We’ve always done appellate work, but these folks do it at the highest level. To have trial and appellate practice together, we make a formidable team,” he said.
“It’s a great way to start off the new year.”
