Leslie Wager Hudock

How Leslie Helps Clients

Leslie Wager Hudock focuses her multi-disciplinary practice on sophisticated business and real estate transactions. She advises clients on merger and acquisition strategies, real estate acquisition and dispositions, liquor licensing, corporate and real estate finance, project development and management, real estate leasing, and the nuts and bolts of operating a business during all of its various life cycles, from startup, to growth, and into maturity. Although Leslie’s core practice is in the corporate area, she is also Board Certified in Real Estate by The Florida Bar and is a licensed title insurance agent for Fidelity National Title Insurance Company, First American Title Insurance Company, and Old Republic National Title Insurance Company.

Clients rely on Leslie for her keen insight on prioritizing risk management and the ability to balance long-range benefits against short-term results.  

Leslie’s 30-plus years of experience spans many sectors, including the health care, automotive, hospitality and tourism industries. She often works with entrepreneurs, CEOs and CFOs of growing and mature businesses and professional practices to provide creative solutions to their legal needs, including in the areas of business expansion and liquidity events, and often serves in the role of outside general counsel to her clients. Leslie’s clients include medical providers, motor vehicle dealers, real estate developers, hotel and restaurant owners and operators, and other tourism business owners and operators. 

Leslie holds Martindale-Hubbell’s® highest rating (AV) for ethics and legal ability. She is a member of the Tampa Bay Chamber’s Leadership Tampa Class of 2024. Leslie has been named to the Florida Super Lawyers consecutively since 2019, and listed in the Best Lawyers in America for Corporate Law, Business Organizations (including LLCs and Partnerships) and Mergers and Acquisitions since 2013. Leslie was recognized in the 2022 edition of Florida Trend’s Florida Legal Elite™ and most recently, was named a 2024 Tampa Bay Business Journal BusinessWoman of the Year.

What Clients Can Expect

Leslie is a big picture thinker. During a transaction, there is often a need to coordinate among the owner’s internal team, external service providers, lenders, investors and transaction counterparts and Leslie knows how to keep everyone pulling with one oar. Clients look to her for her depth of institutional knowledge combined with multi-disciplinary transactional experience to provide them with timely and strategic advice.

We measure success in a transaction by how well we achieve our client’s goals with efficiency, foresight and a minimum of drama.

Outside the Office

Leslie devotes her energies to fostering arts and culture in the Tampa Bay community. She is a long-standing member of the Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture and the Arts (TBBCA) and directly supports local arts organizations whenever possible. She is an active learner and avid world traveler. When Leslie is not working, traveling or taking in a play or art exhibit, you can often find her curled up in a chair reading historical and literary fiction.

Proof Points

• Advised long-time owner of a large, multi-point car dealership chain in the sale of dealership assets and related real property, and regularly represents buyers and sellers of car dealerships throughout the State of Florida.
• Regularly represents borrowers in syndicated and non-syndicated financings of to-be-constructed, newly built and stabilized real estate projects, floor plan facilities and asset-based lending.
• Represents serial entrepreneurs in starting, growing and selling businesses in a variety of industries.
• Represents hotel developer in the acquisition, financing and development of unique hotel properties.
• Serves as general counsel for innovative national tourist attraction operator.
• Regularly represents physicians and physician groups in growth opportunities, employment matters, and the sale of medical practices to hospitals, private equity groups and other buyers.
• For over 30 years prior to joining Buchanan, led the corporate department of a boutique tax law firm in Tampa and served a stint as managing partner and in other management positions.

Awards & Distinctions

• Board Certified in Real Estate by The Florida Bar
• Received Martindale-Hubbell’s® highest rating (AV) for ethics and legal ability
• Named to Florida Super Lawyers consecutively since 2019
• Listed in the Best Lawyers in America for Corporate Law, Business Organizations (including LLCs and Partnerships) and Mergers and Acquisitions since 2013