Law firms in Florida: 17,261 offices, where they are and how they're organized

This report is for anyone sizing up law firms across Florida: someone choosing a lawyer and wanting to know the landscape, a lawyer or paralegal deciding where to work, an analyst, or a company planning a statewide sales territory. For city-level detail, see the reports on Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.

Florida's law offices at a glance

County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023, offices of lawyers (NAICS 541110), Florida:

Florida offices are smaller than the national average and pay about 6.5% less (our calculation from the same data).

Where the offices are

The ten counties with the most law offices:

Pay averages divide each county's published payroll by its employees (our calculation). County rows add up to 17,247, slightly below the state total, because the Census Bureau publishes each geography separately.

Two patterns stand out. South Florida has half the offices but its offices are small: Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach average about five employees each. Orange (Orlando) and Hillsborough (Tampa) have fewer offices but bigger ones, at eight to nine employees. And Leon County, home to Tallahassee and state government, pays the second-highest average of the ten.

How Florida law offices are organized

CBP also reports each office's legal form of organization, which shows how Florida firms are set up:

The Census Bureau flagged the "other" group's employee count as high-noise (its confidentiality noise moved the value by 5% or more). Most Florida law offices are small S-corporations averaging 4.4 employees. C-corporations average 15.7 employees and pay the most per head; partnerships average 12.6.

Office sizes

The Census Bureau doesn't publish the 500 to 999 or 1,000-plus cells, but 78 offices have 100 or more employees, which leaves three with 500 or more. Subtracting within the legal-form detail shows all three are S-corporations.

What CBP misses. It counts establishments with paid staff, so a firm with offices in Miami, Tampa and Orlando counts three times, and lawyers who practice alone aren't counted. Florida's legal services businesses without employees, counted in the Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics, numbered 22,603 in 2023, with $1.66 billion in receipts. Compared like for like (NAICS 5411, which adds title abstract and other legal services to law offices), CBP counts 19,257 establishments with employees, so more of the state's legal services businesses have no staff than have any.

Lawyers and paralegals

The BLS (OEWS, May 2025) counts 55,210 lawyers employed in Florida, with a mean wage of $162,060 and a median of $133,180, and 40,950 paralegals and legal assistants, with a mean of $63,250. Paralegals' location quotient is 1.63, so they're a much larger share of Florida jobs than nationally; the state has about 0.74 paralegals per lawyer against 0.52 nationally. Florida's many owner-lawyers aren't in these figures, which cover employees only.

Checking a Florida lawyer

1. Confirm admission. Admission to The Florida Bar is a judicial function in Florida, run by the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, and an applicant needs proof of good moral character and a passing result on the Florida Bar Examination. From July 2028 the Board will give the NextGen bar exam with a Florida law component. Look the lawyer up on The Florida Bar's website before you hire.
2. Watch for unlicensed practice. Under section 454.23 of the Florida Statutes, anyone not licensed or otherwise authorized who practices law in Florida, or holds themselves out as qualified to, commits a third-degree felony. Be wary of anyone who isn't a lawyer offering to handle a legal matter for a fee.
3. Check the local court record through the clerk of court in the county where your case will be heard.
4. Get the engagement terms in writing, including fees, costs and who will do the work.

Selling to Florida law firms

A statewide plan has to treat Florida as several markets. South Florida has the volume, with 8,554 offices in three counties, but they're small. Orlando and Tampa have fewer, larger offices with administrators. Tallahassee has well-paid offices close to state government. Most accounts everywhere are S-corporations with an owner who signs. Our guide to selling to law firms covers who decides at each size.

Illustrative example. The firm, its rates and its results are invented.

Coastline Trust Books (coastline.example) does trust-account reconciliation and bookkeeping for small firms. Its list starts with Florida S-corporation law offices with 5 to 19 employees: 1,816 + 767 = 2,583 by Census legal-form detail. If an estimated 30% regularly hold client money (injury settlements, real estate closings, estates), that's about 775 offices. A 3% reply rate gives about 23 conversations, and if one in four signs, about six new clients per cycle. The research that matters is which offices handle client funds and who keeps the books; Bebop researches each account and finds that person.

Subject: Monthly trust reconciliation for [firm]

Hi [first name],

Firms like [firm] that handle [settlements / closings] every month carry a lot of client money through the trust account, and the reconciliation usually lands on a partner or the office manager at month-end.

We do the three-way reconciliation and the operating books for small Florida firms and send you a signed-off report by the fifth of each month.

Could I show you a sample report? If someone else handles this, I'd be grateful for their name.

[Your name]
[Company], [postal address]

Florida sources

No exchange-listed company in SEC EDGAR's legal services code (SIC 8111) has a Florida business address.

Next step: build a territory list of firms and contacts with how to build a prospect list.