I represent people whose lives have been changed by someone else’s carelessness: a crash that ended a career, a fall that required surgeries and will require more, a product or a property or a driver that should have been safe and wasn’t. If you’re reading this from a hospital bed, or on behalf of someone who is, you already know the stakes. The question is who prepares your case, and how.
I take a small number of injury cases each year and prepare every one of them as if a jury will decide it. That is not a slogan. Insurance companies don’t pay for adjectives, and neither do juries; the case has to be proved. Insurers track which lawyers try cases and which ones settle everything, and they price their offers accordingly. The most reliable way to be paid full value for a serious injury is to be ready to prove it in a courtroom, and to have the other side know it.
What I take
- Motor vehicle collisions, including trucking, commercial vehicle, rideshare, and motorcycle cases
- Premises liability, where a property owner or business ignored a known hazard
- Negligent security: assaults and shootings at apartment complexes, hotels, bars, parking facilities, and other properties that failed to protect the people on them
- Catastrophic injuries: traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, amputation, severe burns, and injuries requiring lifelong care
- Wrongful death
- Injuries caused by a defective product
- Injuries caused by a drunk or impaired driver, including claims against the bar or vendor where Florida law allows it
How I evaluate a case
Three questions decide whether I can help. Was someone else at fault, and can that be proved? How badly were you hurt, and is the medical evidence there to show it? Is there a realistic source of recovery — an insurance policy, a company, an asset — large enough to make the case worth the fight for you? A strong answer to two of the three is usually not enough. I’d rather tell you that in the first conversation than after a year of your life.
How an injury case actually works
Investigation first. Surveillance video is often overwritten within days. Vehicles get repaired, conditions change, witnesses move, and electronic data disappears. One of the first things I typically do is send preservation demands, so the evidence that proves your case still exists when it’s needed.
Treatment and documentation. Your job is to get better; mine is to make sure the record reflects what you’ve been through. Gaps in treatment and casual remarks in medical charts become the defense’s favorite exhibits. I’ll tell you what to expect.
The demand. Once your medical picture is clear enough to value, I present the case to the insurer with the evidence assembled: not a form letter with a number, but the case the insurer will face if it doesn’t resolve the claim. A premature number can be worse than no number, because it prices injuries that haven’t stabilized and consequences that haven’t yet surfaced.
Suit, discovery, and trial. If the offer doesn’t reflect the harm, I file suit. Depositions, experts, motions, and mediation follow. Most cases settle somewhere along that road, and the ones that don’t get tried. I have first-chaired jury trials and multiple arbitrations, and the preparation is the same either way.
What the other side will do
The insurer is not your friend, and it isn’t the other driver’s friend either; it is a business protecting its money. Expect the other side’s insurer to ask early for a recorded statement, which you should decline until you have a lawyer. Then expect a quick low offer designed to close the file before you know the extent of your injuries. After that come surveillance, a search of your social media, and an argument that your injury was pre-existing or that you were partly at fault. Florida’s current comparative-fault rule bars recovery entirely if a plaintiff is found more than 50 percent at fault, which makes the fault fight more important than it used to be. None of this is personal, and none of it is new. I spent years on the defense side building exactly these arguments, so I know where they’re weakest.
A prior injury doesn’t erase a new one
Many of my clients have prior accidents, degenerative changes, or chronic conditions, which are common by middle age. The defense will try to rewrite your medical history around them. The law is more sensible: a defendant is responsible for the new injury it caused and for the harm it did by making an existing condition worse. The answer is never to hide your history; it’s to master it. What existed before, what changed, what treatment became necessary, what you could do then that you can’t do now: that comparison, told accurately, is often the most persuasive evidence in the case.
What your case may be worth
No honest lawyer can answer that on a phone call. What I can tell you is what the law lets a jury consider: medical expenses past and future, lost wages and lost earning capacity, the cost of future care, and the human losses — pain, disability, disfigurement, and the loss of the life you had. In most car crash cases, Florida’s no-fault law allows damages for pain and suffering only if the injury is permanent, causes significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement, or results in death. In a death case, the surviving family members recover for their own losses, through a single wrongful death claim brought by the personal representative of the estate. Punitive damages are a higher bar. Florida requires intentional misconduct or gross negligence, proved by clear and convincing evidence, and the court must find a reasonable basis for them before they can even be pleaded. The size of the available insurance and the strength of the liability evidence matter as much as the injury itself.
Why me for this
I started my career defending large corporations in serious injury and commercial cases at a major international law firm. I then served as a law clerk to three federal judges in the Southern District of Florida, where I saw how cases are actually decided rather than how they are marketed. I became a partner at a boutique litigation firm and, since 2019, have run my own practice with a deliberately small caseload. Since 2024, I have been recognized by The Best Lawyers in America® for Personal Injury Litigation – Plaintiffs. I have litigated and tried cases to verdict in federal court, state court, and arbitration, securing multi-million dollar outcomes for my clients. Please note that prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case depends on its own facts and circumstances.
What that background means for you is practical: I know how defense lawyers and adjusters value a case, what they fear at trial, and what documentation moves a number. And because I don’t run a volume practice, you’ll be working with me, not a case manager.
Personal Injury FAQs
How much time do I have to file?
Most negligence claims in Florida must be filed within two years of the injury. That deadline was four years for claims that arose on or before March 24, 2023, and those claims may still fall under the old rule. Claims against government entities carry additional notice requirements with their own clocks, and other claims, including product-defect claims, follow their own deadlines. Don’t wait to find out which applies to you.
What does it cost to hire you?
I handle injury cases on a contingency fee: I’m paid a percentage of what is recovered, and if there is no recovery, you owe me no attorney’s fee. You will not owe me for case costs I advance if there is no recovery. The Florida Bar’s rules limit the percentages I can charge in injury cases without court approval and require me to give you a Statement of Client’s Rights before you sign. I’ll walk through both with you.
One more thing worth knowing before you start: a party who loses a lawsuit can generally be ordered to pay the other side’s court costs. I’ll explain how that risk applies to your case before you decide anything.
Should I talk to the insurance company?
To your own insurer, yes, as your policy requires; you may have a contractual duty to cooperate with your own carrier. To the other side’s insurer, no. Don’t give it a recorded statement, sign anything, or accept a payment until you’ve spoken with a lawyer.
Should I stay off social media?
Stop posting about the incident, your injuries, and your activities, and ask me before making exceptions. Assume everything you post, and much of what you think is private, will be read by the defense. Don’t delete anything that already exists; deleting evidence after a dispute arises creates a worse problem than the post itself.
Will someone follow me with a camera?
In a substantial case, possibly. The right response is not fear or performance. Follow your doctors’ advice, be truthful about your limitations, and assume anything you do in public may be photographed. Surveillance does the most damage to people who exaggerate. Don’t exaggerate.
What if I was partly at fault?
You may still have a claim. Florida reduces a recovery by your share of fault and, under the current rule, bars recovery entirely if that share is more than 50 percent. Fault is often more contested than injury, which is one reason early investigation matters.
Do I have to go to court?
Most cases resolve without a trial, but the ones that resolve well usually do so because the other side believed a trial was coming. You will be involved along the way — your deposition, mediation, and your treatment records — and I’ll prepare you for each step.
How long will it take?
Serious cases typically take one to three years from injury to resolution, longer if the insurer forces a trial. Rushing a case before the medical picture is clear often costs the client money.
What if the person who hurt me has no insurance?
If you have uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage, it may be a source of recovery. So may other responsible parties, such as an employer, a property owner, or a vendor, and the defendant’s own assets. Part of my early work is finding every one of them.
If I’m not the right lawyer
If your case is outside what I take, I’ll tell you and, where I can, point you to a lawyer I’d send my own family to.
Call (305) 926-9452 or send a message. Tell me what happened and when.
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