Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier picked a politically connected law firm to represent the state in a lawsuit against tech firm Roku over a competing proposal that would have likely saved the state hundreds of thousands of dollars should it win or convince Roku to settle.

The chosen firm’s principal, securities lawyer Thomas Grady of Naples, is a former appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis and an Uthmeier campaign supporter. He served as a GOP state representative from 2008 to 2010 and as commissioner of the Florida Office of Financial Regulation for two years after that.

The suit against Roku is the first major enforcement action under Florida’s new data protection laws that came into effect on July 1, 2024, and comes amid an aggressive posture by the state against major tech companies.

Uthmeier, whom DeSantis appointed attorney general last year, has also launched a criminal probe against ChatGPT and its parent, OpenAI, and sued social media company Snapchat and gaming platform Roblox.

The Attorney General’s Office declined to discuss how it came to choose Grady’s firm. Jeremy Redfern, the top aide to Uthmeier, instead called the Miami Herald’s reporting “nothing more than a political hit job” and accused the paper of being “left-wing communist.”

Grady said in a statement to the Herald that his proposal was submitted in complete accordance with state laws.

Roku did not respond to the Herald’s request for comment.

David vs. Grady

Florida alleged in a civil enforcement action filed in Collier County in October last year that content platform Roku collected and sold children’s personal data, including viewing habits and recordings of their voices, without obtaining parental consent. The tech firm’s business practices, the state alleges, violated Florida’s Digital Bill of Rights.

Roku also allegedly partners with third-party brokers to provide its advertisers access to sensitive data such as ethnicity and date of birth of users, including children. Florida asked the court to impose a $150,000 fine on Roku for each known violation.

Uthmeier determined that the state needed outside counsel and put out a call soliciting proposals last summer.

His office received two responses — one from Israel David, LLC and another from Grady Law, records show.

Israel David, LLC, named after its founding partner, has offices in New York and Boston but noted in its proposal that it has litigated cases across the country and has strong relationships with Florida attorneys who could serve as local counsel.

Its proposal described the credentials of the attorneys who would represent Florida and listed the firm’s past experience in fighting cases related to online privacy, noting its founder’s role in class-action cases against corporate giants like Twitter (now called X), TikTok, Apple and Ticketmaster.

Grady Law touted Grady’s political experience as state representative, Florida’s commissioner of financial regulation and chairman of the Florida State Board of Education.

“With that comprehensive Florida background, Tom brings genuinely unique insight into the enforcement of Florida’s consumer protection and privacy laws,” it stated.

Where David had three New York attorneys as his references, Grady listed retired Florida Circuit Court Judge Hugh D. Hayes; John Rood, who had served as the under secretary of defense for policy in the first Trump administration; and the president of the New College of Florida and former state House speaker, Richard Corcoran.

David and his firm proposed a contingency fee structure on a sliding scale, starting at one-fifth of any recovery up to $15 million. The higher the amount recovered, the lower the percentage his firm would have made on each additional tier — dropping as low as 5% on any amount beyond $25 million.

The firm also proposed to pay its local counsel in Florida out of its contingency fee. If the state desired, the firm was also willing to agree to an hourly arrangement and would have offered a 15% discount off its standard rates.

Grady stated that its contingency fee engagement would be “consistent with and subject” to a Florida law that lays out caps at higher rates than what David had proposed.

Florida may have to potentially pay Grady $50,000 more than David if the state recovers $1 million from Roku. That difference, according to the Herald’s calculation, only increases with each additional million recovered.

If the recovered amount is upwards of $25 million, Florida may have to pay Grady $750,000 more than what it would have paid David.

This March, roughly six months after Grady’s firm signed a contract with the Attorney General’s office to represent Florida in the Roku fight, 11 businesses that list Grady ⁠— and in some cases, his wife ⁠— as an executive and list the same address as Grady’s law firm contributed $3,000 each to Uthmeier’s campaign to keep his job this November as attorney general.

“After studying his [Uthmeier’s] performance in office for over a year, it was clear that he deserved our support,” Grady told the Herald, adding that he backs the attorney general because their priorities — public safety, especially for kids and families ⁠— are aligned.

Big tech and corporate spies

Grady’s stewardship of state money has been questioned in the past.

In 2012, when he was briefly the interim head of Citizens Property Insurance, the state-run lender of last resort, Grady made headlines for his hefty travel spending, including spending around $10,000 within his first two months. At the time he had defended the expenses as being “very frugal.”

More recently, he and his firm has been involved in several big-dollar tech litigations.

Last year, he represented Tesla shareholders seeking to overturn a Delaware court’s decision to strike down a $56 billion pay package for Elon Musk, who later won his appeal. And in late 2025, Grady took on Meta (formerly called Facebook), including its affiliates Instagram and Whatsapp, for allowing fraudulent Chinese investment scams on its platforms.

The Naples attorney has also played a central role in a bitter public dispute regarding allegations of corporate espionage that has rocked Silicon Valley and the tech world.

In March last year, Rippling ⁠— an HR services firm whose subsidiary Grady helped incorporate in Florida ⁠— filed a suit in California against Deel, a business rival, accusing it of planting a spy to steal customer and employee information and product details.

Deel, for its part, has denied any wrongdoing and counter-sued Rippling in Delaware with similar allegations of corporate espionage.

Central to Deel’s counterclaims is its accusation of Grady being a “fixer” for Rippling and planting false news stories and “ginning up frivolous regulatory issues for Deel.” The suit alleges that Grady lobbied regulators in multiple states to investigate Deel and wrote letters “replete with knowingly false information” about Deel which he then amplified to “damage Deel’s business.”

It does not name Grady as a defendant.

“Deel falsely points to me to divert attention from its own bad conduct,” Grady told the Herald, pointing out that regulators in Minnesota and Florida have previously cited Deel for unlicensed practices which Deel later corrected.

Both suits are still ongoing.

Reality Check

Florida’s Roku lawsuit could end in a payday for a politically connected lawyer

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