PERRY, FL 4004 Golf Course Rd.
PANAMA CITY, FL 430 W 5th Street Suite 400
Corning, NY 5 East Market St., Suite 254
Mike’s journey began when he left Hemet, California (home of the largest trailer park in the United States at the time) to attend the University of Southern California. He joined Air Force ROTC, and finished as a distinguished graduate with a double major in international relations and history before leaving Los Angeles to attend Air Force Undergraduate Pilot Training at Columbus AFB, Mississippi.
Mike continued his streak by earning distinguished graduate honors at pilot training and a coveted spot flying the F-15 Eagle as part of the First Tactical Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. The squadron was the second to arrive in Saudi Arabia after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990, and Mike flew 31 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm as the youngest flight leader in his squadron. In his spare time during Desert Shield he wrote the squadron’s operation plan for the first three days of the war.
A.B., University of Southern California
M.S., Troy State University
J.D., University of Georgia School of Law, magna cum laude
Master of Laws in Taxation, New York University School of Law
United States Supreme Court
The Florida Bar
The New York Bar
Court of Federal Claims
11th Circuit Court of Appeals
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida
After the war, Mike was assigned to draw on his combat experience to teach at the F-15 schoolhouse at Tyndall AFB, Florida, and immediately fell in love with the Florida Gulf Coast. Figuring before he was 30 he’d already done what every fighter pilot spends his career aspiring to accomplish—leading men in combat (well, “man” not “men”—he was only a two-ship flight lead, after all), he started looking for a new challenge and found it in the practice of law. Mike graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1997, serving on the editorial board of the Georgia Law Review, and as president of the Georgia League, an organization for aspiring lawyers who eschewed practicing in a big city.
And as it happened, Mike turned down an offer to take the conventional path and join a big Atlanta law firm. Instead, he came home to Panama City, joining the law firm of Barron & Redding and soon cementing a reputation as a skilled litigator and problem solver in cases ranging from products liability to the Girls Gone Wild civil litigation to claims arising out of complex business disputes. Along the way, Mike has tried over twenty civil cases to a jury (candidly, he’s lost count), and still more nonjury trials and arbitrations.
Mike became certified as a circuit civil mediator back in 2004, and his passion for alternative dispute resolution led him to a two-year stint as a tenure track professor at the Charleston School of Law teaching ADR (and commercial law, although he talks less about that), and later an adjunct position teaching at FSU’s College of Law.
Mike left his friends at B&R in 2018 after Hurricane Michael flattened his 1930s home on Massalina Bayou, and he was forced to move to nearby Walton County and the beaches of 30A. There he joined the law firm of Dunlap & Shipman, but came home to Bay County in 2022 to open D&S’s Panama City office in 2022.
In January of 2025 Mike left D&S after six happy years to strike out on his own, providing concierge representation to clients who’ve grown to be friends over the years, and to new friends looking for help with complex business and estate planning, commercial litigation, and mediation and arbitration. He currently maintains offices in Panama City, in Corning, New York, and Perry, Florida.
Mike has also served the bar as a member of the Florida Bar Board of Governors, the Florida Board of Bar Examiners, and as chair of the Florida Bar's Code and Rules of Evidence Committee. His published works can be found in the Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, the Stetson Law Journal, and the quarterly publication of the ABA’s Evidence Committee.
When he’s not serving as a mediator or arbitrator, tackling a complex estate tax problem, or appearing in court, Mike is flying the family’s Columbia 400 all over the eastern United States, or spending time at Wyldswood, the family farm in Taylor County, Florida. Mike and his family have also established a home in the Finger Lakes Region of western New York among a community of friends that spans from the shores of Canandaigua Lake to Corning.
When he’s not serving as a mediator or arbitrator, tackling a complex estate tax problem, or appearing in court, Mike is flying the family’s Columbia 400 all over the eastern United States, or spending time at Wyldswood, the family farm in Taylor County, Florida. Mike and his family have also established a home in the Finger Lakes Region of western New York among a community of friends that spans from the shores of Canandaigua Lake to Corning.
When he’s not serving as a mediator or arbitrator, tackling a complex estate tax problem, or appearing in court, Mike is flying the family’s Columbia 400 all over the eastern United States, or spending time at Wyldswood, the family farm in Taylor County, Florida. Mike and his family have also established a home in the Finger Lakes Region of western New York among a community of friends that spans from the shores of Canandaigua Lake to Corning.
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