J. Gordon Arkin
Partner/Retired
J. Gordon Arkin is a retired partner with Foley & Lardner LLP and was a member of the firm’s Finance & Financial Institutions, Health Care Finance and Transactional & Securities Practices and the Health Care Industry Team. Gordon practiced general business law with an emphasis on municipal finance and airport law. He served as special counsel to many airports and was general counsel to the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority for over 20 years.
Gordon has over 40 years of experience in representing clients in negotiating all types of commercial transactions, including business acquisitions and sales; state and federal agency regulatory and legislative counseling; commercial property and facility leasing, management and development; and municipal finance and securities. He has served as lender’s counsel, borrower’s counsel, underwriter’s counsel and trustee’s counsel on billions of dollars of financings and interest rate swaps. He represented the owners and operators of senior living facilities throughout the United States. He has also represented lenders in providing billions of dollars of loans to insurance companies created by various states that insure against hurricane damage.
Representative Experience
- Representation of a nationally known company in providing a $4.0 billion liquidity put to the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund
- Representation of a public company in the acquisition of eight senior living facilities located in four states
- Representation of the City of Orlando in renegotiating the agreement that allows the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority to operate Orlando International Airport until 2065
Awards and Recognition
He is Peer Review Rated as AV Preeminent®, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell’s Peer Review Rating system, and from 2000 until his retirement in 2013, was selected by his peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America®, in the areas of administrative law, corporate law and equipment finance. In 2013, he was named The Best Lawyers in America® Orlando Administrative/Regulatory Lawyer of the Year.
Affiliations
Gordon is a past chairman of the Corporations Committee of The Florida Bar. He has also served as chairman of the legal committee of Airport Operators Council International.
Gordon was the founding chairman of the Orlando chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ). He served as chairman and trustee of the Central Florida Foundation, and as chairman and a board member of Seniors First, Inc. He currently serves as a board member of New Hope For Kids, as a trustee of the Seniors First Foundation, and as a board member of the Central Florida Regional Housing Trust. He also founded the Business Lawyers’ Pro Bono Project at the Philantrophy Center at Rollins College. For his pro bono community service, Gordon was the recipient of the Community Leadership Award by the National Points of Light Foundation, the Humanitarian Award from the Orlando chapter of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Tree of Life Award from the Jewish National Fund, the Service to Mankind Award from the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, The George Wolly Community Leadership Award from Jewish Family Services of Greater Orlando, the White Rose Award from the Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida, and the Lynford Lardner Community Service Award from Foley & Lardner LLP. Gordon also served on Foley’s management committee from 1989-1998, and was the first recipient of Foley’s Carl Hitchner Mentor of the Year Award.