_{The regulator is fuming in Florida.}

Florida’s legal regulator has accused three Kennedys partners including its Regional Managing Partner of practising law without a licence.

Anna Weiss, Alex Guillamont and Lorena Avila are all based in the insurance specialist’s Miami office. Weiss and Guillamont are both qualified in England and Wales, while Guillamont is also qualified in Spain and Avila is qualified in Venezuela.

But the pencil necks at the Florida Bar, which regulates attorneys in the Sunshine State, have charged Kennedys and the three partners with holding themselves out as advising in other jurisdictions as well.

It said their website profiles constituted proof that they had “engaged in the unlicensed practice of law in Florida”.

Weiss was described on her bio as “Regional Managing Partner for LATAM and Caribbean (Foreign Legal Consultant, not admitted to practice law in Florida)”, while Guillamont and Avila were each described as “Partner for Latin America and Caribbean practice (Foreign Legal Consultant, not admitted to practice law in Florida)”.

That didn't go far enough for the Florida Bar, which said its rules only allowed a 'Foreign Legal Consultant' to give themselves an additional title like 'Partner' if it was accompanied by the name of the country in which the individual was qualified. It said that Kennedys and its partners flouted that requirement by referring to LATAM and the Caribbean.

The firm duly made some edits and Weiss is now listed simply as “Foreign Legal Consultant (Not Admitted to Practice Law in Florida) Partner (Qualified in England & Wales)”, and her colleagues' profiles have been similarly pollarded.

The manner in which the partners’ expertise and experience were set out also proved they had broken the rules, said the Florida Bar.

Guillamont was described as the leader of a “seven-office 60-lawyer strong Latin American and Caribbean practice” while Weiss was presented “as having been involved in providing legal advice and/or legal services in matters connected to jurisdictions other than the United Kingdom and Wales [sic], including Peru, Chile, Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, and Jamaica”, said the Florida Bar.

Similar allegations were levelled at Avila, and both she and Guillamont have also been accused of holding themselves out as Foreign Legal Consultants despite not having paid the requisite annual fees for 2023/24.

As a result, the Florida Bar has hit the partners and the firm with a 33-page petition in the Supreme Court of Florida seeking an injunction prohibiting the trio from practicing in the state unless they become licenced at the Florida Bar.

The regulator may have been particularly hot on transgressions by Kennedys as a result of a bumpy history together. Its petition attached two ‘Cease and Desist’ letters signed by Weiss and Guillamont in 2015 in which they swore not to hold themselves out as lawyers in ways that breached its rules.

A source sympathetic to Kennedys' predicament told RollOnFriday that the Florida Bar’s regulations were arguably out of step with the contemporary legal market in which international firms run complex cross-jurisdictional matters involving teams around the world, and in which a lawyer can be based in one country, run an office in another, and practice the law of a third.

A spokesperson for Kennedys said, “Our firm has had a presence in Florida since 2010. Since that time, we have worked to comply with requirements of the Florida Bar.  We continue to work with the Bar to ensure full compliance”.

RollOnFriday would link to all the filings, but in keeping with its parochial tendencies the Florida Bar's website has geo restrictions in place that prevent anyone in the UK from accessing it. A spokesperson assured ROF he would have them removed. 

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