Holland & Knight

Former judge and later US senator Spessard Holland opened a law practice in 1929 as Holland & Bevis. Peter O. Knight, who established his law practice in Tampa in 1889, tried his first case at age 18 and later refused an offer from the Harding administration to be considered for the US Supreme Court. Their namesake firms merged in 1968 to form Holland & Knight.

In 1997 the firm acquired Haight, Gardner, Poor & Havens, making them the 12th-largest law firm in the United States at the time with around 600 attorneys. That number had grown to 840 by 1998 following subsequent acquisitions. Holland & Knight merged with the Dallas-based, 275-attorney Thompson & Knight in 2021, retaining the name Holland & Knight. During the first quarter of 2023, Holland & Knight merged with Nashville-based Waller, Lansden, Dortch & Davis, resulting in a roster of almost 2,000 attorneys.

During the mid-2020s, Holland & Knight became a noted facilitator of management services organization (MSO) private equity deals with individual law firms, and became a significant component of its legal services transactions practice.

In its 2024 financial year, under chair and chief executive Robert Grammig and managing partner David Whitestone, the firm passed $2 billion in revenue for the first time, an increase of 10.5%. Profits per equity partner reached $2.29 million, and the firm added more than 80 lawyers, a 4.7% increase in headcount.

Following the Trump administration's attacks on other Biglaw firms, citing their DEI programs, by May 2025, the firm had removed a significant quantity of related content from its company website.

Malpractice litigation

In 2026, the Florida real estate company MV Realty PBC sued Holland & Knight and three of its partners, Jesús Cuza, Rebecca Cañamero and J. Raul Cosio, for up to $1.2 billion, alleging that the firm's advice destroyed its business. The claim concerns the firm's work designing MV Realty's homeowner benefit agreements, under which the company made upfront payments to homeowners in exchange for decades-long exclusive rights to list their properties should the owners decide to sell. State authorities brought proceedings characterising the arrangements as deceptive and unconscionable, and courts in several states criticised the early termination fee attached to them.

According to the complaint, sixteen states filed lawsuits over the programme and more than thirty opened investigations, and the firm authorised the programme through formal opinions, presentations and emails while billing the company more than $9 million. Holland & Knight said that it was confident in the advice it had provided and in the merits of its position, and retained Peter Prieto of Podhurst Orseck, a former head of its own litigation practice, to defend the claim.