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Lobbying firm Smith Bryan & Myers earned an estimated $4.6 million in pay last year, compensation reports show.
Last year saw the firm juggle 189 contracts, with a near even split between their legislative and executive reports.
Smith Bryan & Myers’ 95 legislative clients accounted for $2.71 million in earnings. The 94 clients on their executive sheet brought them another $1.89 million.
Lobbying firms report their pay in ranges covering $10,000 increments. Florida Politics uses the middle number of each range to estimate total revenue.
Intuition and Johnson & Johnson Services both topped the legislative lobbying client list for Smith Bryan & Myers last year. They each spent $80,000 for work with the firm in 2019.
Intuition – or Intuition Systems – is a Jacksonville-based business advisory organization that handles both governmental and private entities. Johnson& Johnson is, of course, the pharmaceutical and health care product giant.
A score of clients paid Smith Bryan & Myers an estimated $60,000 each for legislative lobbying work. The firm had a wide variety of clients and there was no focus on one particular industry.
Some of those clients included local and municipal entities, such as the Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, Alachua County, the City of Naples, the City of Palatka and others.
On the executive lobbying side, Smith Bryan & Myers saw their list of clients topped by nine organizations, each paying an estimated $60,000 fees across their quarterly reports.
Two notable organizations in that bunch: Christian Prison Ministries and Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund.
Christian Prison Ministries assists Christian chaplains with supplies such as bibles in the prison system. The nonprofit organization also provides counseling services.
Everytown for Gun Safety is an advocacy group that, as its name implies, seeks to end gun violence and challenges the nation’s gun lobby courting lawmakers.
Smith Bryan & Myers had another 50 clients who paid the firm an estimated $20,000 each in executive lobbying fees last year.
The firm had seven lobbyists who served both executive and legislative clients in 2019. The Smith Bryan & Myers team: Matt Bryan, David Daniel, Thomas Griffin, Jeff Hartley, Lisa Hurley, Jim Naff and Teye Reeves.
SBM’s 2019 revenues represent substantial year-over-year growth. Median earnings estimates pegged the firm’s 2018 revenues at $4.1 million.
Florida lobbyists and lobbying firms faced a Feb. 14 deadline to file compensation reports for the period covering Oct. 1 through Dec. 31. Compensation reports for the first quarter of 2020 are due to the state in mid-April.
