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WEEK OF MAY 31-JUNE 6, 1996

Pohl’s ‘boutique’ enjoys healthy growth

By ALEX FINKELSTEIN
Staff Writer

The eight-lawyer Winter Park firm of Pohl & Short, created in September 1993 because of its founder’s frustration with big law firms, has doubled its client base and experienced a 30 percent annual growth rate in billings.

Frank L. Pohl, who says he left his former firm largely because he felt stymied by in-house committees "meeting every time you have to make a decision," declines to disclose his firm’s gross billings or its number of clients.

"Just say it’s more than six and under 15,000," says Pohl, who keeps the numbers close to his vest for an obvious reason: "Even though growth opportunities are there, the current market throws off only so much business."

Pohl & Short’s current client roster includes George Chen’s Formosa Gardens Development Co., which helped build the Florida Splendid China theme park; Winter Park Holding Co.; American Generator Inc.; Keycom Telephone Systems Inc.; Bank of Winter Park; Thompson Steel Inc.; Denim U.S.A.; Leonard Quality Homes; Servtronics Inc.; and Grayborn Enterprises Inc.

"We must be doing something right for the small business community or we wouldn’t be expanding or even be in business ourselves today," Pohl says. "We’re a small business ourselves."

At 6,500 square feet, Pohl & Short is the largest tenant in a 30,000-square-foot office building off downtown Winter Park at 280 W. Canton Ave.

"I don’t know of another boutique shop in metro Orlando that is doing what we are doing, "Pohl says. "That is, offering and delivering quality legal services at reasonable rates. In fact, I don’t know of another boutique shop similar to ours in Orlando at this time."

His is not a discount operation, however.

"Just like accountancy or any other kind of professional service, you can get legal services far less expensively at firms smaller than ours," Pohl says.

"We’re the alternative to the big guys’ hourly rates of $200 an hour," he says. "We’re not the cheapest, and we’re not the most expensive."

Pohl & Short fees are "flexible" and will vary depending on the amount of research involved.

"Our lawyers are not given a quota to run up billable hours for a client just for the sake of reaching that office’s monthly or quarterly quota," he says.

"If we have three hours of research on a case, for example, and we know we can make a reasonable profit by charging for less than that amount, we’ll do it if it makes good business sense."

"We’ll do it because we don’t have the overhead of the major firms. We don’t have marble floors or pay rents of $25 a square foot. We don’t have that same pressure to meet goals or quotas that most lawyers have at the big firms."

Pohl says he started his firm only after realizing Orlando offered no alternative choices for legal services.

"I researched New York, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles and other large metropolitan centers and found they all had boutique shops except for Orlando," he says. "I knew then my concept was on track."

Pohl defines a "boutique shop" as one that offers expertise in the four main areas of business or commercial law: litigation, real estate, corporations and a combination of taxes, estate, trusts and assets protection.

The 43-year-old Columbus, Ohio native concedes he "probably couldn’t do what we’re doing now three or four years ago because we wouldn’t have been able to find the quality legal talent to do so. My fervent wish is for the big law firms to get even bigger and more successful so that we will be able to continue drawing off some of their top talent."

Pohl says his current staff joined him from larger firms for various reasons, none of them based primarily on six-figure compensation. Most are in their 30s and 40s.

"It may sound corny, but many professionals today want to be working in a certain office ambience," he says.

"They’re looking for a certain lifestyle. They don’t like to be just another number in a big office. Most want to be part of ‘a family’ of professionals. Some want regular recognition. Others prefer to work without a business development manager breathing down their backs.