Paul M. Stokes, born on July 16, 1946, in Miami Beach, grew up in South Florida, and was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1971. He graduated from Duke University in 1968, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, with a B.A. degree in history, and from the University of Chicago Law School in 1971, with a J.D. degree, Order of the Coif.

Since 1986, he has been Board Certified as a specialist in Wills, Trusts and Estates by the Florida Bar Board of Legal Specialization and Education. He is a member of the Tax Section and the Real Property, Probate and Trust Law of the Florida Bar, and a Fellow of the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel.

Following law school, he served as a law clerk for the Hon. MiltonPollack, District Court judge in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He commenced the practice of law with the law firm of Smathers & Thompson in Miami in 1972, was later made a partner in that firm, and continued as a partner with the international firm of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP when it merged with Smathers & Thompson in 1987. In 1999, he left Kelly Drye to form what is now Stokes McMillan Maracini & Antúnez P.A.

His practice areas cover estate planning, private client services, federal estate, gift and generation skipping transfer taxes, estate administration (including decedent's estates, trust estates and guardianships), and related litigation.

His community involvement has included service on the Probate and Guardianship Committee of the Dade County Bar Association, for which he served as chair for several years, on the Board of Directors of the Dade County Bar Association, in the Masters Program in Estate Planning at the University of Miami School of Law, as an adjunct professor, on the Permanent Judicial Council of the Tropical Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (USA), on the Board of Regents of Trinity International University, on the Visiting Committee of the University of Chicago Law School, and the Session of the First Presbyterian Church of Miami Springs, as an Elder, and on the Board of Greater Miami Youth for Christ.