Young Lakeland attorney grows into statewide leader on elder law

Kevin Albaum’s aunt was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, and he saw the challenges that came with that. So it’s easy to understand why he was drawn to the elder law program while attending Stetson University College of Law. 

Today he leads the elder law department at Clark, Campbell, Lancaster, Workman & Airth in Lakeland. He became a shareholder at the firm at just 29 years old and achieved board certification in his field at age 31. He’s currently chair of the Elder Law Certification Committee for The Florida Bar and vice chairman of VISTE, a nonprofit serving at-risk seniors in the greater Lakeland area.

Photo by Mark Wemple

His mentor, firm founder Ronald Clark, is a big reason why he’s achieved all of that. “I told him what I wanted to do in my elevator speech, which I had given many times, and he was the first person to say, ‘Whatever you need to succeed, I’ll invest in you,’” says Albaum. “He gave me a chip and a chair, as I like to say, and gave me the opportunity to go ahead and build what I wanted to build.

“He truly just gave me a platform,” Albaum continues. “Anything I ever said I needed, the answer was always yes.”

Albaum has learned a lot about managing a team over his years at the firm. “Every single employee, you need to meet them where they are, because they all have different needs,” he says. “I try to put people in situations to succeed.”

He enjoys the fact that no day is the same in elder law. “I get to meet a lot of people and identify and solve their problems,” he says. “It’s pretty cool that every day is different and you don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Dealing with crises, illness, and death is the tough part of the job. Albaum recently took two days off, and two longtime clients passed away and another had a severe stroke while he was out of the office. “The hard part is, what you do with that mentally and emotionally when people keep dying and getting sick?” he asks.

Albaum deals with it by playing ice hockey twice a week, doing yoga, spending time with his family and friends, and walking his two goldendoodles. (He can lean on his wife Lauren, too, vice president of student affairs at Florida Southern College in Lakeland and a 40 Under 40 winner last year.) “It’s doing things where I’m not thinking about my profession and my responsibilities,” he says. “You’ve got to turn the brain off.”