Biography
My great grandfather, Eugene Malone, started a law firm in Central Illinois which my father, Richard James “Jim” Lannon, Jr., managed prior to being appointed Judge on the 13th Judicial Circuit, in and for LaSalle County, Illinois. My Aunt, M. Catherine Lannon, was the head of the Administrative Law Division of the Florida Attorney General’s Office for 33 years after clerking at the 1st DCA. My cousin, Laura C. Lannon, served as a prosecutor for Cook County, Illinois (i.e., the Chicago metropolitan area) prior to her untimely and unfortunate death. You could say that being an attorney is in my blood.
Born in LaSalle, Illinois in 1974, my family moved to Dedham, Massachusetts when my parents divorced in 1984. I attended school in Massachusetts from 4th grade to my senior year of college, having graduated from The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester in 1996. For the next 4 years, I worked as a sales representative for BellSouth Advertising & Publishing Corporation in Tucker, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta. Being a sales representative prepared me for being an attorney, for it is far more difficult to sell a product or service to an unwilling buyer than it is to demonstrate to a jury or a judge why his client’s position in the lawsuit is meritorious, or why my client deserves to win, and why my client deserves to be compensated (i.e., paid damages).
I attended law school at The Catholic University of America, Columbus School of Law in Washington, D.C. from 2000 to 2003. During this time, I was invited onto the Journal of Contemporary Health Law & Policy (this journal is reserved for students in the top 10% of their class) and (2) Moot Court. My Comment, “Let Him Die with Dignity or Hope for a Cure, the Consequences of Modern Medicine”, was printed in the Winter 2002 edition. I have also held the prestigious honor of serving as the Note and Comment Editor for the Journal.
After graduation from law school, I clerked for The Honorable Peggy A. Quince at the Florida Supreme Court for 2 years. I then worked at the 8th largest law firm in the world at the time in its Central Florida Litigation Practice Group handling commercial litigation and appeals. I left that Am Law 100 firm to work at an intellectual property litigation boutique before serving as the Deputy City Attorney in Palm Bay, Florida for 2.5 years. When the City Attorney was terminated, I was promoted to City Attorney, a position that I held for 7 years. In 2018, I joined the 10th largest law firm in Orlando and worked in its Commercial Practice Group before starting my own firm.
