Albert Dotson Jr. of Bilzin Sumberg.
Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod has elected Albert Dotson Jr. to serve as its next managing partner, adding him to a very short list of African-Americans who have assumed the leadership role at a major U.S. law firm.
When the transition is completed in 2019, long-time founding managing partner John Sumberg will assume the role of firm chairman.
Dotson will serve as managing partner-elect during the coming year, working closely with Sumberg, who has managed the firm since it opened in 1998. He will then take the reins for a two-year term.
Bilzin Sumberg’s equity partners officially elected Dotson Tuesday morning. The vote was unanimous, the firm said.
Dotson joined Bilzin Sumberg just a few months after founding partners Brian Bilzin and John Sumberg left the Miami office of Rubin Baum Levin to create their own firm. He is a member of Bilzin Sumberg’s executive committee and chairman of its land development and government relations practice group.
John Sumberg.
Sumberg said that Dotson was in his view the “absolute obvious candidate because he has great judgment and great skills with people.” He also said he has been preparing Dotson for the role for about five years, after an informal poll of equity partners a few years ago.
“I’ve seen him by his thoughtfulness and the way he approaches issues and people to really move things forward and come to a conclusion in an inclusive, collaborative style,” Sumberg said.
In addition to assuming the role of firm chair, Sumberg will remain part of the executive committee and continue to serve his clients, which include some of the largest real estate developers and investors in the state.
The firm claims the largest real estate practice in Florida, with more than 40 attorneys who together have closed more than $3 billion in new commercial and residential loans since 2016.
As managing partner, Dotson will maintain his practice, which focuses on public-private partnerships and government relations.
Dotson founded the firm’s leading P3/public-private partnership practice and has been at the forefront of some of South Florida’s biggest recent infrastructure projects. The firm is involved in the $3.5 billion Brightline high-speed rail; the $300 million Liberty Square project; and Craig Robins’ $1.4 billion Miami Design District project encompassing 18 square city blocks of retail and entertainment. The governmental relations practice is currently shepherding more than $8 billion in projects related to transit, public housing and public works.
Over the last several years, Dotson and Sumberg discussed not only the managing partner transition but succession planning in other areas of the firm, Dotson said. The firm placed two new members on the executive committee last year and will install three new practice group leaders next month.
“We’ve had discussions about practice group leaders and how we prepare our second and third generations to be ready to take on leadership roles within the firm,” Dotson said.
Bilzin Sumberg has held leadership development programs for its lawyers so they understand that to be a good leader within the firm they must learn not just the practice of law but also the business of law and the management of people, Dotson said. The partners are also taking steps to help the next generation of lawyers become more of an integral part of the firm’s extensive community involvement, thereby ensuring that future firm leaders are making themselves known in the community.
Dotson has been a pioneer in diversity in the law and elsewhere. He is chairman emeritus of 100 Black Men of America Inc. and a board member of the Orange Bowl Committee and the Mourning Family Foundation. He serves on the Federal Judicial Nominating Commission of Florida, and in 2014, he was appointed by President Barack Obama to serve on the White House Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.
Earlier this year he was named Attorney of the Year by the Daily Business Review.
