Best Lawyers Near You in Jacksonville, Florida for Criminal Defense: White-Collar
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Florida’s unique economic drivers—tourism, real estate, agriculture and healthcare—create specific legal demands that often require attorneys with focused regional experience. Whether you're in the Keys, the Panhandle, or Central Florida, understanding the local context can be just as important as understanding the law.
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That distinction matters here. Best Lawyers only includes professionals who are fully licensed and actively practicing—legal advocates recognized by their peers for excellence in skill, ethics and service.
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Each attorney profile provides:
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This transparency helps you evaluate your options and choose someone with the right background for your specific legal issue. You’re accessing a curated list of professionals with proven reputations in their field.
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Legal Coverage Throughout Florida
No matter where you live or what kind of legal help you need, chances are we’ve got it covered. Best Lawyers recognizes attorneys in both high-demand and niche areas of practice across all corners of the state. This directory includes lawyers from large metro areas like Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville, as well as smaller communities like Gainesville, Pensacola and Sarasota, ensuring you can find representation no matter where you're located.
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- Criminal Defense: Experienced defense attorneys help clients navigate Florida’s criminal justice system with insight and integrity.
- Immigration Law: As a diverse and international state, Florida sees high demand for legal representation in immigration and naturalization matters.
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We also include lawyers practicing in emerging or specialized fields, such as cybersecurity law, cannabis regulation, aviation law and education law. With so many attorneys practicing across Florida, it can be difficult to know who truly stands out. That’s where Best Lawyers adds genuine value by showing you not just every practitioner who’s licensed, but qualified attorneys who have earned the respect of their peers through years of dedicated service and proven results.
A Peer-Review Process You Can Trust
Every attorney listed in our Florida page has earned recognition through Best Lawyers’ rigorous annual peer-review process. This is a comprehensive methodology grounded in the insights of the legal community itself.
Here’s how it works:
- Nomination: Lawyers are nominated by peers or clients who have observed their work firsthand.
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This process helps ensure the integrity of our listings. If you’re selecting an attorney from our directory, you’re choosing someone who didn’t just claim to be the best—they were recognized by other attorneys as among the best in their field.
Start Your Search for an Attorney in Florida by Practice Area or City
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Practice Area Overview
“White-collar defense” captures a broad set of substantive areas of the law, all of them arising from the myriad ways that local, state, federal, and foreign governments regulate businesses and entrepreneurs — what they say to investors and the general public about their own successes and failures (securities law); how they compete with one another (antitrust law); how they win business, deliver services, and seek payment when governments are themselves the customers (False Claims Act, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act); how businesses treat the environment; and whether they comply with general laws against theft, fraud, bribery, tax evasion and corruption. Public officials must navigate similar rules and thus present similar types of issues included under the broad category of white-collar defense.
The practice demands particularly versatile lawyers who deliver a range of services. White-collar lawyers try cases in court. They also specialize in risk management and compliance, training businesses and their individual employees about ways to minimize potential criminal and civil liability. Corporations engage white-collar lawyers to conduct internal investigations of their own business practices to assess and prepare for the risk of criminal and civil liability. Individuals and corporations demand white-collar representation as much when they are merely witnesses to alleged wrongdoing as when they are accused of it. White-collar litigation also involves assessing victims’ damages and their potential remedies as well as representing those accused of wrongdoing in administrative and court proceedings.
White-collar practices also must anticipate and prepare for the potential trajectory of a white-collar case. For example, an internal investigation identifying potential criminal or civil issues can lead to government enforcement actions and follow-up civil claims by alleged victims or competitors — all arising from the same conduct. The risk of criminal punishment and civil fines and liability potentially running into the billions of dollars, increase the complexity of white-collar matters and the demand for sophisticated counsel.
Criminal Law Legal Guide 2025
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Matthew R. Kachergus has devoted his career to representing a wide array of clients ranging from the criminally accused, those whose constitutional rights have been violated, to numerous others needing counsel for civil litigation. As a result of Mr. Kachergus’ tireless efforts in advocating for the interest of his clients, he is listed in Best Lawyers in America, in the fields of white collar and non-white collar criminal defense law, as well as Super Lawyers. Mr. Kachergus is a member...
Since 1980, Elizabeth “Betsy” White has established an excellent and widespread reputation as a top lawyer in the fields of criminal defense, civil rights, and appeals. Her experience includes extensive litigation on behalf of criminal defendants as well as litigation to protect the constitutional and civil rights of individuals and groups, including women, minorities and prisoners. She has litigated at all levels of the judicial system, including the United States Supreme Court. ...
Our Methodology
Recognition by Best Lawyers is based entirely on peer review. Our methodology is designed to capture, as accurately as possible, the consensus opinion of leading lawyers about the professional abilities of their colleagues within the same geographical area and legal practice area.
The Process
Best Lawyers employs a sophisticated, conscientious, rational, and transparent survey process designed to elicit meaningful and substantive evaluations of the quality of legal services. Our belief has always been that the quality of a peer review survey is directly related to the quality of the voters.