Land Use & Zoning Senior Attorney (Partner Track)

Senior Attorney — Land Use & Zoning 

Location: West Palm Beach, Florida

**ON-SITE**

The Opportunity

An established West Palm Beach boutique is launching its land use and zoning practice and is hiring the attorney who will build it.

This is a build role, not a seat. The right attorney will own the practice area outright — shaping how it goes to market, developing the client base, setting the standard for the work, and growing a team beneath them. The firm brings unusually direct relationships with local, state, and national policymakers; the attorney brings the practice.

Few opportunities let a land use attorney build a practice on a platform with this level of access in Palm Beach County. If you have spent your career executing someone else's entitlement strategy and want to run your own, this is the seat.

What You'll Do

• Build and lead the firm's land use and zoning practice from the ground up — strategy, service offering, staffing, and growth
• Represent developers, property owners, and institutional clients through the entitlement process: rezonings, comprehensive plan amendments, variances, special exceptions, conditional uses, site plan approvals, plats, and development orders
• Advocate before municipal and county boards — planning and zoning commissions, city and county commissions, boards of adjustment, and administrative hearings
• Draft and negotiate development agreements, restrictive covenants, easements, and related instruments
• Advise on comprehensive plan and land development regulation amendments, concurrency, vested rights, and impact fees
• Counsel clients on environmental, permitting, and regulatory matters intersecting with development
• Handle land use disputes and appeals, including certiorari review and Bert Harris Act claims
• Work directly with the Managing Partner on business development and the public positioning of the practice
• Supervise the practice's paralegal and any attorneys added as the group grows

What We're Looking For

Required

• Member in good standing of The Florida Bar
• Substantial experience in Florida land use, zoning, and entitlements — private practice, city or county attorney, or a combination
• A track record of taking applications through the full approval process and arguing them before elected and appointed bodies
• Command of Florida's land use framework, including Chapter 163, Part II, Florida Statutes, and the local codes of Palm Beach, Broward, Martin, and St. Lucie counties and their municipalities
• Comfort operating in public, political, and community-facing settings — hearings, neighborhood meetings, and press
• The self-direction to build something from a standing start

Strongly Preferred

• Established relationships with planning staff, elected officials, and the development community in Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast
• A portable book of business
• Prior public-sector experience — city attorney, county attorney, or planning department counsel
• Involvement with ULI, CNU, local bar land use committees, or comparable organizations
• Adjacent capability in real estate transactions, environmental law, or administrative and appellate practice

Structure

• Senior Attorney title with a defined path to partnership as the practice matures
• A dedicated, experienced paralegal — a hire the firm is making in parallel with this one
• Compensation is open. The firm has deliberately not set a band; it is hiring for the person. Candidates with portable business will be structured on a custom package including origination credit and incentive components