ST. PETERSBURG, Florida – One of Florida's premier law firms, which has expanded its general practice but remains focused on real estate, bankruptcies, foreclosures and short sales, has expanded its staff again and moved its headquarters.
Yesner & Boss, P.L. (www.yesnerboss.com) recently left its standalone building for high-rise quarters at 9800 4th Street N, Suite 402, St. Petersburg, FL 33702. The new office is about a dozen blocks southwest of the old one and retains its phone number: 727.471.0039.
"We were out of space and gained about 2,000 square feet in the move," said partner Shawn Yesner. "And the building provides the warm, professional image we try to convey as a full-service firm." The new office is just south of the Gandy Boulevard corridor connecting Pinellas and Hillsborough Counties.
In addition to personal and commercial real estate law, Yesner & Boss handles family law, including divorce, child custody, alimony, and estate planning, tax law, personal injury and plaintiff's litigation. Now with four offices – in St. Petersburg, Tampa, Sarasota and Palm Beach, 10 lawyers and a full-time staff of 23 – the practice required a new management tactic, Yesner said. The firm added CEO Ron Prather, a licensed attorney and real estate veteran.
"As we continued to grow, we realized that to better serve our clients, we needed to put someone in charge of the day-to-day functions of the office so we could devote more time to the practice of law and business development," Yesner said.
Prather, 61, is a native of Texas but has lived in Florida since 2004. He owned development and real estate firms in Illinois and practiced law there. He consulted for real estate firms in Florida before joining Yesner & Boss.
"The first time I sat down and talked to this firm, it seemed like a great fit," Prather said.
Florida is second in the nation only to Nevada in real estate foreclosures with nearly 123,000 new actions this year, according to RealtyTrak, which follows real estate trends nationwide. While the heaviest Florida foreclosure concentrations are in the southeast and east-central areas, the numbers remain high in greater Tampa Bay.