Magid & Williams, P.A.

Where the firm puts its attention

Founded in 2005, the firm works in labor and employment law from a base in Jacksonville, Florida. Its full legal name is Magid & Williams, P.A. Since it opened, it has kept a narrow focus, and most of its work is done for employees rather than employers.

Representing workers means the firm usually sits across the table from companies and their counsel. In my opinion, a firm that picks one side and stays there tends to learn that side well. The cases it takes start at work, and many of them end up in a hearing room or a courtroom.

For a prospective client, the employee-side focus is worth knowing up front. The firm does not represent the companies it argues against, so there is less chance of the conflicts that come with switching sides. Its work is aimed at the person bringing the claim.

The kinds of cases it handles

The firm's practice areas cover the common disputes of employment law. These include employment discrimination, wrongful termination, sexual harassment, unpaid wages and overtime, whistle-blower and retaliation claims, non-compete and employment contract disputes, and severance.

On discrimination, the firm's pages list claims based on gender, pregnancy, age, race, national origin, disability and religion. It also takes on family and medical leave matters, covenants not to compete, and retaliation tied to whistle-blowing or workers' compensation. The list is specific, and it matches the situations employees actually run into at work.

Some of these cases are about money owed and some are about how a job ended. Unpaid wages and overtime claims deal with hours a worker put in and was not paid for. Severance and employment contract work comes up when someone leaves a job and needs the terms read closely before signing. The firm handles both the money side and the paperwork side of leaving a job.

How the team is built

The firm carries the names of two of its lawyers, Leonard S. Magid and P. Daniel Williams. Both are Board Certified by the Florida Bar in Labor and Employment Law, and both hold an AV rating in the Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory. The firm reports more than 40 years of combined legal experience between them.

Board certification in Florida is not given out lightly. It asks a lawyer to show steady involvement in the field, pass a written examination, and earn good peer review. Both named attorneys hold it in the same area, which says something about how the firm concentrates its work.

A third attorney on the profiles page

The firm also lists Samuel B. Kanupp. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from Florida State University, then a law degree from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law, where he graduated cum laude in 2008. During law school he worked with the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law on its Employment Discrimination Project. That early work sits close to the kind of cases the firm takes today.

Where and how cases move forward

The firm has represented clients in state and federal court, in administrative hearings, in mediations and in negotiations. That mix means a claim can take more than one route, and the right route depends on the facts of the case.

Not every dispute needs a trial. The firm lists mediation and negotiation among the ways it resolves matters, and both can settle a claim without the cost and delay of court. It also handles administrative steps, such as filings with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that often come before a discrimination or retaliation lawsuit can move ahead.

The firm also covers a wide stretch of northern Florida. Its pages describe work throughout Jacksonville, Daytona and Tallahassee, along with the counties in between and up near the Georgia border. For workers outside a large metro, that reach matters, since employment counsel can be hard to find in smaller counties.

What the record shows

The clearest outside signal here is the AV rating. The Martindale-Hubbell peer review rating comes from other lawyers, and the firm holds it at the firm level and for both named attorneys. As a reviewer, I read that as a steady verdict from people who work in the same courts.

Two things sit behind that rating. One is peer review, which is other lawyers rating the work. The other is board certification, a separate check run by the Florida Bar. When both point the same way for the same lawyers, a client gets more than a single opinion to go on.

What the site does not do is lean on slogans or big promises. It describes the work, names the practice areas, and states the credentials it can back up. In my opinion, that restraint fits a firm whose named lawyers hold board certification and a long peer-reviewed record. For an employee weighing whether to bring a workplace claim, the useful facts are all here: the focus on employees, the certifications, and the courts and agencies where the firm actually appears.