In an epic month she’ll long remember, Mayanne Downs, who will become GrayRobinson’s first woman president and managing director Sept. 1, experienced a series of extraordinary highs and lows in her career and family:
Her father died June 1, two days before she was named successor to the firm president and managing director Byrd F. “Biff” Marshall Jr., making her the highest ranking female managing partner of a Florida law firm. Her mother was hospitalized June 6, and Downs was hurled into the maelstrom of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history at the Pulse nightclub just blocks from her home June 12. The massacre occurred on the same day as a scheduled brunch celebrating her daughter’s engagement. Because Downs is also the longtime city attorney for Orlando under contract with the municipality since 2007, she was directly and immediately involved in the legal matters stemming from the shooting that took 49 lives and injured more than 50.
