Don’t be bullied by the government.
Donner Law Firm helps clients challenge government action with practical judgment, direct advocacy, and an understanding of how local government actually works.
Your property. Your business. Your right to fair government.
- Property: Can government lawfully restrict or burden its use?
- Process: Did the agency follow the law and its own procedures?
- Enforcement: Is the action supported, proportionate, and even-handed?
When regulation becomes obstruction—or overreach.
Donner Law Firm represents property owners, businesses, and individuals confronting local and state government action. The right response may be administrative advocacy, negotiation, an appeal, or litigation.
Code enforcement defense
Citations, notices of violation, unsafe-structure matters, fines, liens, and enforcement proceedings affecting property or operations.
Permits and approvals
Delayed, denied, conditioned, or revoked permits, licenses, variances, certificates, and other approvals.
Property and land-use rights
Zoning, access, development rights, regulatory burdens, and government action affecting property use or value.
Environmental regulation
Environmental notices, agency demands, cleanup or compliance disputes, and regulated-property matters.
Administrative proceedings
Hearings, agency appeals, public-record disputes, rule challenges, and preservation of issues for judicial review.
Constitutional and federal claims
Selected matters involving serious, provable harm, including appropriate claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 or the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Know the process. Challenge the premise.
Government disputes are often won or lost before a lawsuit is filed. Administrative deadlines, notice requirements, the hearing record, available appeals, governmental immunities, and the identity of the decision-maker all matter.
Question the authority
What law, ordinance, rule, permit condition, or evidence actually supports the government’s demand?
Protect the record
What must be raised now to preserve the ability to challenge the decision later?
Measure the burden
How does the action affect property, operations, cost, liberty, or constitutional rights?
Understand the bureaucracy. Build the counter-record.
A disciplined response starts with the source of governmental power, tests whether the agency followed the law, and then chooses the remedy that fits the problem.
Find the source of power
Identify the statute, ordinance, rule, permit condition, policy, and factual basis the government says authorize its action.
Expose the weak point
Test notice, procedure, jurisdiction, consistency, evidence, proportionality, and whether government followed its own rules.
Choose the right remedy
Pursue the most effective path—compliance strategy, negotiation, administrative hearing, appeal, declaratory relief, or constitutional litigation.
Serious representation for consequential government problems.
The practice is designed for property owners, developers, business operators, professionals, and regulated entities who value early analysis, a disciplined record, and direct advocacy. Government and administrative matters are ordinarily handled on an hourly or agreed project basis, with scope and terms confirmed in writing.
A former code-enforcement prosecutor who knows how government works.
Jeffrey T. Donner has many years of experience representing individuals, businesses, and local governments in environmental, government, and administrative matters. He served as a Senior Assistant City Attorney for the City of Miami Beach, including responsibility for code-enforcement matters.
That background helps the firm identify what an agency must prove, where procedure breaks down, and when a dispute should move from the administrative process to court.