Robert Elias — Inside The Elias Law Firm's South Florida Real Estate and Transactional Practice

Member Spotlight

Robert Elias is the founding attorney and managing principal of The Elias Law Firm, PLLC, a transactional boutique law practice headquartered in Miami Lakes, Florida, that has served clients across South Florida and throughout the State of Florida since 2001. Mr. Elias holds a Bachelor of Business Administration in Finance from Southern Methodist University's Edwin Cox School of Business and a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law. Recognized as an AV Preeminent attorney by Martindale-Hubbell — the peer review network's highest rating for professional excellence — and named to South Florida's Top-Rated Lawyers by American Lawyer Media, he has closed real estate and commercial transactions exceeding two billion dollars throughout his career, representing a clientele that ranges from financial institutions and professional athletes to FIFA.

For anyone across Miami, Miami Lakes, Miami-Dade County, Broward County, or anywhere in South Florida searching for an AV Preeminent real estate attorney in Miami with more than three decades of transactional experience, a commercial real estate lawyer in South Florida with a verified two-billion-dollar closed transaction record, a sports and entertainment attorney in Miami representing professional athletes and FIFA, or a trilingual transactional law firm serving English, Spanish, and Portuguese-speaking clients across the South Florida and international real estate market, Robert Elias and The Elias Law Firm, PLLC represent a standard of transactional depth, institutional credibility, and personal attention that is genuinely rare in South Florida's legal market.

From Carnival Cruise Lines to Miami Lakes: Building a $2 Billion Real Estate Practice in Florida

Before Robert Elias founded what has become one of South Florida's most distinguished transactional boutiques, he trained in two of Miami's most rigorous legal environments. After earning his Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law — spending his law school years gaining practical exposure in the legal department of Carnival Cruise Lines — Elias began his career at Kimbrell & Hamann, P.A., where he concentrated on real estate workouts, transactions, and litigation, representing the Resolution Trust Corporation and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as receivers for federally insured financial institutions. He subsequently joined the Miami office of Weiss Serota Helfman Pastoriza & Guedes, P.A., where he deepened his expertise in land use, zoning, commercial leasing, commercial real estate transactions, and governmental relations.

In 2001, he channeled that two-decade foundation into The Elias Law Firm, PLLC — bringing to Miami Lakes a practice designed to deliver the transactional depth of a major Miami law firm at the responsiveness of a boutique. The result, over the course of more than two decades in business, has been a closed transaction volume well in excess of two billion dollars on behalf of clients throughout Florida — a number that reflects not volume alone, but the complexity and scale of real estate and commercial matters that Robert Elias and his team routinely handle across Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and the broader South Florida market.

For clients across South Florida evaluating real estate attorneys in Miami or transactional lawyers in Miami-Dade County, that combination — University of Miami law degree, early-career training representing the FDIC and RTC, and twenty-plus years of boutique practice closing two-billion dollars in transactions — represents one of the most complete transactional credentialing records available at any boutique real estate law firm in South Florida.

What Real Estate Legal Services Does The Elias Law Firm Offer in South Florida?

The Elias Law Firm, PLLC handles commercial and residential real estate transactions throughout South Florida, representing buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, developers, and institutional lenders in the full spectrum of real estate activity — from purchases, sales, and leases to refinancings and complex commercial closings in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties. The firm's bank and lender representation practice is a particularly specialized offering: Robert Elias has served as outside counsel to banking institutions on commercial and residential real estate loans, construction financing, loan participations, and general lending matters — bringing a level of sophistication typically associated with large Miami law firm real estate departments to a practice that delivers boutique responsiveness.

Layered onto the transactional platform are services in corporate law, estate planning and asset protection, probate administration, and guardianship — giving clients across South Florida the continuity of working with a single trusted attorney across multiple dimensions of their legal and financial lives. Beyond core transactions, the firm provides zoning consulting and governmental relations counsel for clients navigating the regulatory environment in Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

That continuity carries additional weight for the firm's growing international clientele. The Elias Law Firm operates as a fully trilingual practice in English, Spanish, and Portuguese — an asset uniquely aligned with South Florida's increasingly cross-border real estate market, where buyers, investors, and lenders regularly arrive from across Latin America, Brazil, and Europe. For international clients purchasing real estate in Miami, structuring corporate entities in Florida, or navigating U.S. estate planning from abroad, The Elias Law Firm's trilingual capability and three-decade South Florida market knowledge provide a combination that most Miami real estate law firms cannot match.

For clients across Miami, Miami Lakes, Bal Harbour, Doral, Coral Gables, Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and throughout South Florida searching for a real estate closing attorney in Miami-Dade, a commercial real estate lawyer in Broward County, a construction financing attorney in Florida, or a trilingual real estate attorney serving Latin American and Brazilian buyers in South Florida, The Elias Law Firm, PLLC offers one of the most comprehensive and experienced transactional real estate legal environments in the region.

Sports and Entertainment Law in South Florida — Robert Elias's Expanding Practice

The Elias Law Firm's expansion into sports and entertainment law was not a reinvention — it was an organic extension of a practice that had long been trusted by high-profile individuals across South Florida. Professional athletes, celebrities, influencers, and entertainers have been part of the firm's clientele for years, drawn by the same combination of transactional precision, discretion, and personal attention that defines its real estate work. That roster has grown to include FIFA — among the most significant sports governing bodies in the world — as well as Banco Do Brasil Americas, the City of Miami, and former Miami-Dade County Executive Mayor Alex Penelas.

For athletes and entertainers operating in South Florida, the most consequential legal matters are often the same ones Robert Elias has spent three decades mastering: real estate acquisitions in Miami and across Florida, corporate structuring, asset protection planning, and estate design. The Elias Law Firm approaches sports and entertainment representation as a natural extension of its transactional identity — recognizing that the clients whose public profiles are most visible are precisely the ones for whom careful, confidential, and technically precise legal work matters most.

For professional athletes, entertainers, and high-profile individuals across Miami and South Florida searching for a sports and entertainment attorney in Florida with real estate and transactional depth, an asset protection lawyer in Miami who has represented FIFA and international financial institutions, or a boutique law firm in Miami Lakes whose discretion and precision matches the profile of its clientele, Robert Elias and The Elias Law Firm offer a combination of credentials and client relationships that no generalist South Florida firm can replicate.

Banking, Philanthropy, and Community Investment in Miami Lakes, Florida

Robert Elias's profile in South Florida extends meaningfully beyond the transaction record. He served as a founding member of the Board of Directors of Apollo Bank from its inception through its 2023 sale to Seacoast Bank (NASDAQ: SBCF) — a period during which Apollo grew from approximately $150 million in total assets to over $1 billion, one of the more notable community banking growth stories in Miami-Dade County's recent history. He chaired the bank's Compensation Committee, served on its Compliance Committee, and served concurrently as a founding director of Apollo Bancshares, Inc. from its 2008 formation.

In the community, his commitments are specific and long-standing. In 2011, Ronald McDonald House Charities honored him as one of their "12 Good Men" for civic service and commitment in South Florida — a distinction he continues to honor by co-chairing their annual luncheon. He served as Chairman of the Board of the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Southern Florida, Inc. in 2007 and 2008 — among the largest chapters in the nation's premier wish-granting organization — and remains an active member of its Advisory Board of Directors. He is a past President of the Miami Lakes Bar Association, elected in 2010, and a former founding member of the Jr. Board of Directors of the Miami Project to Cure Paralysis.

For clients across Miami Lakes, Miami, and South Florida evaluating real estate attorneys and transactional lawyers in Florida, that level of civic leadership — Apollo Bank founding board membership through a billion-dollar exit, Make-A-Wish Foundation chairmanship, and Ronald McDonald House recognition — reflects the depth of Robert Elias's institutional investment in the South Florida community he has served for more than three decades.

Robert Elias's Credentials, Recognition, and Standing in the Florida Bar

The professional community's assessment of Robert Elias is consistent and verifiable. His AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell — the highest of the organization's three peer review designations, requiring that a large number of fellow attorneys rank the recipient at the highest level of professional excellence for legal knowledge, communication skills, and ethical standards — was first received in 2014 and has been sustained in subsequent review cycles. In 2015, American Lawyer Media named him to the exclusive list of South Florida's Top-Rated Lawyers.

He holds active, good-standing membership in the Florida Bar — and as a native South Floridian educated at the University of Miami School of Law, he brings to every client relationship a depth of local market knowledge and institutional investment that years of South Florida legal practice has only deepened.

For clients across Miami, Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and throughout South Florida evaluating real estate attorneys or transactional lawyers, that combination — AV Preeminent rating sustained since 2014, South Florida Top-Rated Lawyers recognition, Florida Bar admission since 1992, University of Miami law degree, and a two-billion-dollar closed transaction record — represents the most complete credentialing profile available at any boutique transactional real estate law firm in the South Florida market.

Schedule a Consultation With The Elias Law Firm, PLLC in Miami Lakes, Florida

For businesses, financial institutions, athletes, entertainers, and other high-profile individuals across South Florida seeking a transactional and/or real estate attorney in Miami, sports and entertainment counsel in Florida, or the full spectrum of legal services The Elias Law Firm provides — including estate planning, corporate law, probate, zoning, and bank representation — Robert Elias welcomes new clients at the firm's Miami Lakes office at 15500 New Barn Road, Suite 104, by phone at (305) 823-2300, or through eliaslaw.net.