Gary M. Berkson Attorney At Law

Business savvy dealmaker guiding clients through complex transactions. Former in-house counsel advising national corporations, emerging companies, and start-ups.  

Gary Berkson represents middle market companies in all phases of the business lifecycle, from formation and start-up to mergers, sales, and strategic acquisitions. A seasoned corporate counselor with valuable in-house experience, Gary advises clients operating across a diverse range of dynamic sectors, including information technology and software, manufacturing and distribution, insurance, real estate, construction, engineering, and professional services, among others. Clients include large, national corporations, as well as emerging and early stage companies and strategic ventures.

Serving clients through the lens of outside general counsel, Gary provides business-focused and pragmatic advice to the C-suite and other key stakeholders during pivotal growth moments. His work focuses on helping clients amplify opportunities while managing risk. Gary’s portfolio of expertise includes entity selection, debt and equity financing, restructuring, and workouts, joint ventures and strategic alliances, and succession planning. He also guides clients through sales to private equity investors and multi-stage mergers and acquisitions. As a complement to his transactional work, Gary advises clients on commercial and contractual relationships, employment relationships and agreements, and in the resolution of disputes between owners, owner deadlock and dissolution claims, and negotiated buyouts and redemptions. 

Before private practice, Gary served as vice president/corporate counsel for an international supplier of transit systems and equipment and as corporate counsel for an international real estate franchise organization. He frequently teams with GrayRobinson colleagues in the real estate, litigation, and taxation sections to provide collaborative and effective transactional advisory services for clients.

• Notable Work
  • Represented one of the largest multiple listing service (MLS) organizations in the nation as outside general counsel.
  • Represented an Orlando-based landscape distributor in its acquisition by a national landscape supply company.
  • Represented the purchaser of the nation’s largest provider of substitute employment management software systems in the education industry; advised the company in migration of its technology to a web-based service; and represented the company in its sale to a private equity investment fund.
  • Represented client in the formation of a joint venture for the purpose of establishing a personal lines insurance brokerage agency and strategic implementation of the acquisition of numerous independent brokerage agencies.
  • Represented a closely held contract electronics manufacturer in a two-staged acquisition of 100% of the shares of stock in the company owned by its founding shareholders to an employee stock option trust, including negotiation of all transaction documents related to the acquisition and institutional lender financing.
  • Represented financially distressed international retail business in the negotiated foreclosure of defaulted loan from institutional debt investment fund.
• Affiliations
  • The Florida Bar Business Law Section
  • Orange County Bar Association
• Credentials
  • J.D., Emory University School of Law, 1980
  • B.A., University of Rochester, 1977
• Admissions
  • Florida