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Verdict and Voice: How Bill and Anne Scherer Turned a Courtroom Career into a Lasting Family Enterprise.

On any given morning in Fort Lauderdale, William “Bill” Scherer is already thinking several moves ahead. A case to shape, a jury to persuade, a strategy to refine. After more than five decades in the courtroom, the veteran trial attorney from Indiana University School of Law still approaches the work with the same urgency he had in the early 1970s, when he first stepped out from behind the bench as a law clerk and onto the trial floor. “I wanted to get in there and be a lawyer on the other side,” he says. “I was tired of being on the clerk side. I watched a lot of good lawyers and tried to take in everything I could.”

That instinct to observe, absorb and outwork became the foundation of what is now Conrad & Scherer Trial Lawyers, one of South Florida’s most formidable litigation firms. But behind the firm’s longevity and reputation is a quieter constant: Anne Scherer, Bill’s wife, business partner in life and philosophy, and, as he puts it plainly, “the glue that holds us all together.” Their story, like their careers, is layered. It involves law and legacy, certainly, but is also built on music, mentorship and a deep-rooted commitment to community. Bill’s career has been defined by high-stakes litigation and moments that ripple far beyond the courtroom. He represented President George W. Bush during the 2000 election recount in Florida. “I don’t think it gets more dramatic than that,” he says of the recount. “A nation watching us at Thanksgiving counting chads.” In 2025, he led a trial team that secured an $826 million verdict that was later amended to more than $1.25 billion on behalf of thousands of Seminole Tribe children. He stood on the brink of another billion-dollar outcome in opioid litigation. Yet for all the headline-making cases, his approach remains grounded in something simpler.