Meet Rob Robinson, Sarasota Land Use & Property Attorney

Do you actually have a legal problem?

Chances are, if you are watching this video, you probably realize you may have a legal issue that you need assistance from an attorney with. It could be anything from an interaction with your local government, from code enforcement, to something relating to a zoning issue or a permitting issue you have. You could find yourself the defendant in a lawsuit and not sure at this point what to do.

Many times you may think you have a legal problem, but the best news you are going to get from me is that you actually do not have a legal problem. And hopefully we can find other practical, real world solutions that you might try to resolve the issue.

How the practice has evolved

I have practiced law here for almost 36 years, and that practice has evolved over time. I originally started out doing general civil litigation. Then in 2000, I became a city attorney for a municipality here in Sarasota County, and did a wide variety of work surrounding both state and local government.

Since I opened my own firm right after Covid, I have focused on trying to just help people. Sometimes that is me helping them. Sometimes it is me leading them to someplace where they can get help. And most of that involves interactions between individuals, families, small businesses, and state and local government.

Sometimes that will take us into administrative forums at the local government level. And sometimes that takes us into court here in the state courts of Southwest Florida.

What drew him to law

I am a fifth generation Floridian. I was born and raised in the central part of the state, to an agricultural family. Growing crops is problem solving. And so what drew me to law was really the idea that people would come to you with a problem, and you would do what you can to help them solve that problem.

That is what has kept me in the practice of law, because that really has not changed over time. We have seen a lot of changes in terms of the people who live here and the number of people who live here. The legal challenges that come about have changed, certainly. I practiced in a day when there was no email, and now of course we have email. I practiced in a day when we did not really have computers. We actually had typewriters.

How does he think about AI in legal work?

I can ask AI to do just about anything. You can ask it to draft a motion or a complaint that you might file in court. So how are lawyers going to be able to use that technology in a way that is trustworthy? We have found, for example, that AI sometimes will actually just manufacture cites to a case that do not exist. It is really a management issue of how best to use it.

I have had some really positive experiences with it with clients, particularly where a client has a lot of notes and they are trying to put their thoughts down. You can literally give AI those notes, and it will turn it into something that is coherent and that makes sense.

On the other hand, clients also use AI, and for that matter the internet, to get answers to some questions. That sometimes concerns me, because you want to be sure that the answer you are getting out of that computer is correct. And really, that is what I feel like I am being hired to do.

Becoming a city attorney

Around 2000, I was practicing mostly in the realm of civil litigation, but I had represented governmental entities in the past, including property appraisers and tax collectors from Sarasota County down to Monroe County. An opportunity arose, and I was selected to be a city attorney for a local municipality here in Sarasota County. I served in that capacity for almost 15 years.

During that time, the city grew by leaps and bounds. And one thing about being a city attorney is that it is what some call the last of the general practitioners. You have an opportunity to understand and learn how local government actually works and functions. You get a chance to see everything that happens in local government, from the basic functions of garbage collection all the way up to the highest level of policymaking.

On top of that, you get interaction with other local governments, and that includes counties, particularly Sarasota County. That gives you an opportunity, with that knowledge, to help people who need to navigate through some form of interaction they are going to have with a city or a county.

It could be something as simple as a code enforcement violation, or as complicated as needing to change the zoning on a piece of property. Right now we are dealing with some very interesting issues of what we call legal nonconforming uses, which are old uses that predate the zoning code that we would like to see the client be able to continue to utilize.

That experience, 15 years of interacting not only with local government employees but also local government politicians, gives you a unique perspective. It puts me in a position to assist individuals and small businesses in this area when they have a need to interact with local government.

What kinds of matters does he handle?

The areas where I spend most of my time practicing dovetail into my experiences as a city attorney. We handle a variety of zoning and permitting matters on behalf of clients, both individuals and small businesses. We also handle code enforcement. There is a pretty large demand for that in Southwest Florida. So if you have received a code enforcement violation, or you are doing something on your property that you suspect might run you afoul of the codes in the jurisdiction you live in, we would help you navigate through it.

Code enforcement is itself an administrative proceeding, and I have spent a great deal of my career practicing in the realm of administrative law. That takes us everywhere from a code enforcement hearing to hearings in front of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, all the way up into Tallahassee to the Division of Administrative Hearings, where you are dealing with public employees and their employment rights.

And lastly, I would say appeals. An appeal is really you seeking a court to redress a prior decision that you disagree with. That decision could come from another judge, or even an administrative law judge or special magistrate. Appeals can take place at the state court level, and there is also an entire level of appellate courts in the state of Florida. We fall within the Second District Court of Appeal, so I do some work there as well on behalf of clients, involving appeals of adverse decisions.

Boundary disputes

One other area that we deal with, which does not necessarily involve interaction with local or state government, is boundary disputes. We see a lot of those. Even though Southwest Florida is largely a platted-lot area, where you see lots created by plat that have finite boundaries, we still see disputes that arise over the use of a boundary line that has migrated over time onto one side or the other of the actual line. People build fences and they do not always follow exactly where the boundary is, or they are trying to navigate the fence around a tree. So we do a good bit of that. I hear quite frequently from clients who have boundary disputes relative to their residential lots.

Why does timing matter so much?

I think the most important thing I would convey to potential clients is do not wait too long. Reach out. Do your research, but reach out to an attorney. You can contact me by telephone, by email, or through my website, where I have a chat box. The important thing is that if you wait too long, then we are trying to undo something that has already been done.

So if you are in your backyard walking your dog and you look over and notice some strange stakes along the boundary you have not seen before, you might talk to your neighbor, and your neighbor says, oh, I am putting up a fence. If that raises questions in your mind about whether the fence is in the right place, that is the time to reach out. If you wait until the fence is constructed and a couple of years have passed, it may be too late to redress those issues.

The same holds true with code enforcement. If a code enforcement officer comes to your property, chances are you are going to get a notice of violation in the mail later on. So that is the time to pick up the phone or reach out to me, because those are the times when we are able, more often than not, to provide some assistance that might actually result in avoiding a notice of violation, or a dispute with a neighbor over a boundary.

What happens when you first make contact?

The first thing that happens when I am contacted by a potential new client is that I would like them to summarize, in a few sentences, what they think the issue is. If it is an issue that revolves around an area of law that I practice in, then we take it to the next step, which is really fact finding, to make sure we understand the situation. There are always two sides of the story. There is the potential client's side, and there may be somebody else's side. Once you have all that information and have sorted fact from fiction, it is really just an application of what the existing law is, whether that is the law of a local jurisdiction, something as simple as their code, all the way up to state law.

What most clients are looking for is an idea of what their chances are if they pursue the matter. A client seeking to rezone their property wants to know what their chances are before that local jurisdiction. So once we have done that analysis with the facts and the code sections we are dealing with, we might even take an extra step to look at who sits on the planning board that is going to make an initial recommendation, thumbs up or thumbs down, on that zoning. We want to see what their track record has been.

We can take all that information and provide it to the client, so they have a pretty good understanding that maybe this is the wrong time or environment to seek a rezoning, because there is some pushback on density or other things going on in the community. That is really how we look at analyzing problems. You cannot guarantee results, but clients are really just looking for some assurance that they have a matter worth pursuing, and that they have at least a reasonable opportunity to be successful.

How does he keep clients informed?

Once we have determined that it is something we can help a client with going forward, clients expect communication. Our policy is that phone calls and emails are returned within 24 hours. We want to be sure that anything we receive on the matter is sent to the client. Back in the day that was through the U.S. mail, but the vast majority of clients today prefer to be communicated with through email, so we are able to attach documents we receive or documents that have gone out on their behalf.

That also allows the client to have a greater role in the matter, because they can see drafts of documents and have some input to make sure we have their story right. I think it is also incredibly important to give the client good news and bad news as soon as possible. Sometimes things go right. You have a victory in court, or a positive outcome with a permit application. But sometimes it does not work out, and clients want to know that as soon as possible. You cannot sit on that information. So we strive to make sure clients are involved and informed with regard to their matter.

When should you reach out?

I think most people know when they have a problem. For me personally, it is usually when my gut starts telling me something is not right. Whether that is a dispute with a neighbor over a boundary, or you have gone to the county wanting to do something with your land and they tell you that you need a site plan and you do not know what that is. That is the point at which most people do what I am fine with them doing, which is jump on the internet and do a little research on their own.

I strongly recommend that people do not rely on the legal advice they might see from an internet search on Google. Instead, look for an attorney in the area of law that you have an issue with, whether it is zoning, permitting, code enforcement, or something else. And if my name pops up, there are lots of ways for you to communicate with me, either through the website or by phone. I am one of the few attorneys in this area who actually answers my own phone. So when you call the office, chances are, if I am there and available, you are going to speak to me, and we are going to have a frank conversation to assess whether or not this is something I can help you with.

And if it is not, my goal is that you leave that call with someplace else to go. It might be someplace like Gulf Coast Legal Services, or a lawyer referral service through the Florida Bar. But at least there is someplace for you to go, and hopefully be able to find somebody you can talk to about the issue you have.