Guest Author
Full-service law firm Dean Mead managed $2.61 million in lobbying pay last year, newly filed compensation reports show.
The firm had a total of 135 contracts last year . Out of those, 65 clients contracted with the firm for legislative lobbying services which accounted for $1.34 million in median revenues. Another 69 clients hired Dean Mead for executive lobbying work in 2019. That racked up $1.27 million in lobbying fees for the firm.
Lobbying firms report their pay in ranges covering $10,000 increments. Florida Politics uses the middle number of each range to estimate total revenue last year.
Three organizations paid Dean Mead $60,000 each for legislative services in 2019. They include Lykes Bros., Scientific Games International and Real Property, Probate & Trust Law Section of the Florida Bar. Those three topped the list for the biggest revenues from individual clients for Dean Mead.
Lykes is the Tampa-based agricultural business that spans hundreds of thousands of acres in both Florida and Texas. Scientific Games is based in Alpharetta, Ga., and is largely focused on developing lottery gaming systems.
Another 32 clients paid Dean Mead $20,000 each last year for legislative lobbying. Appearing on that list were Tampa Bay Water, Florida Outdoor Advertising Association, Florida Chamber of Commerce and several municipal entities such as the City of Clearwater, Panama City and Charlotte County among others.
On the executive lobbying side of Dean Mead’s roster of clients, both Lykes and Scientific Games topped that list as well for fees paid to the firm last year. Each paid Dean Mead $60,000 for executive lobbying work.
Many of the clients that appeared on the Dean Mead list of legislative lobbying clients also appear on the executive lobbying roster with municipal entities taking up a fair share of the clientele.
Dean Mean utilized 11 lobbyists in 2019, all of whom contributed to the both legislative and executive lobbying efforts. The list: Angela Bonds, French Brown, Marc Dunbar, Peter Dunbar, Martha Edenfield, Brittany Finkbeiner, Michael Minton, Christopher Moya, Cari Roth, Jennifer Ungru and Michael Dobson.
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.
