Robert Bass

Robert is a shareholder and manages the Firm’s transaction and corporate practice group, which focuses on dealership mergers and acquisitions, commercial real estate transactions, dealer business planning, dealer succession planning, and entity structures and related agreements. Robert joined the Firm in 1995 as an associate and has developed and built its transaction practice from a couple of closings per year to a level that currently is in excess of 50 closings per year.

The Firm represents automobile, motorcycle, powersports, boat and watercraft, heavy-truck, and implement dealer. Robert and has been involved in and has closed over 750 dealership transactions. These transactions have occurred in over 40 states and vary in size from small rural dealerships to large multi-line metropolitan market dealerships. Robert’s working knowledge of the dealership transaction process extends to nearly every automobile brand retailed in the U.S., as well as Harley-Davidson and most powersports brands.

Robert began practicing law as a second career. A native of Virginia, he graduated from James Madison University in 1984 with a Bachelor of Science in Geology. He returned to school in 1992 to study law after several years of working in corporate sales and marketing. He earned his Juris Doctorate in 1995 from the Florida State University (FSU) College of Law, where he was selected to the Order of the Coif. While at FSU, Robert was a member and executive board member of the Journal of Land Use & Environmental Law. He is the author of Florida’s Troubled Inland Protection Trust Fund: Common Law Actions as Alternative Remedies for an Innocent Buyer of Contaminated Commercial Land, 11 J. Land Use & Environmental. Law. 139 (1995).

Outside the office, Robert enjoys travel, snow skiing, gravel cycling and participating in racing and cycling events, all modes of travel through the mountains and western deserts, and engaging in other outdoor sports and activities.

Professional Associations and Memberships

• The Florida Bar
• The District of Columbia Bar