monday, december 11, 2006

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006 www.DailyBusinessReview.com

H unton & Williams partnerCarlos Loumiet wasintrigued last April whenPanama’s Grupo Banistmo

asked him to help the bank respond toa purchase offer from London’s HSBCHoldings.

HSBC isthe world’sthird-largestbank, whileBanistmo isCentralAmerica’sbiggest finan-cial servicesinstitution,

with 220 branches and operations in adozen countries.

The deal would be made by means ofa tender offer — which Loumiet calls anovel procedure in a region where pub-licly traded companies are relativelyscarce.

“Any international transaction, whereyou are blending different legal systemsand trying to make them work seam-lessly, presents interesting challenges,”said Loumiet, co-chairman of Hunton &Williams’ international practice groupand chairman of its Florida businessgroup. “This is a perfect example.”

For Loumiet and FernandoMargarit, a fellow partner at Hunton &Williams, it meant eight months of nego-tiations to obtain a selling price theBanistmo board could recommend to itsshareholders. On top of that, HSBC — agiant many times the size of Banistmo— is notoriously tight-fisted.

It was not easy. Talks broke off twicebefore a final agreement was reachedlast July. In the end, HSBC agreed topay $1.77 billion, Margarit said,because “Banistmo is a pearl.”

With operations in Costa Rica,Honduras, Colombia, El Salvador,Nicaragua, Guatemala, the Bahamasand the U.S., Banistmo “looks tostrengthen [HSBC’s] presence in one ofits fastest-growing markets,” accordingto a British securities firm that followsthe bank’s stock.

Making the deal was only the start ofthe task for Loumiet and Margarit.Banking laws and regulations of 10 sep-arate jurisdictions had to be met,Loumiet said, further complicating an

already difficult transaction.Especially troublesome, according to

Margarit, was the fact that Panama’s taxlaws were being amended at the time tomake certain that the country collectedwhat it regarded as its fair share fromthis new phenomenon, a tender offer. Inthe end, that meant a higher price hadto be negotiated to make Banistmoshareholders happy.

Despite the challenges, both attor-neys described the experience as espe-cially rewarding. They already had been

representing Grupo Banistmo for sever-al years as it engaged in a series ofacquisitions of its own. “The people atBanistmo were sophisticated and experi-enced about such transactions, and thelawyers all got along well,” Margaritsaid.

In fact, he added, coming to the endof the job was “bittersweet. I mademany friends in Banistmo, and nowthey’re no longer our client.”

— Dan Cordtz

AA2 • MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006 • DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW

S P E C I A L R E P O R T : M O S T

A look at the Daily Business Review’s secondannual Most Effective Lawyers report leaveslittle doubt about the scope and complexity ofthe South Florida legal market.

Lawyers recognized in this special report created anew city while at the same time assembling the state’slargest conservation tract; protected an industry frompotentially costly and protracted litigation; won thelargest Federal Tort Claims Act verdict; exposed a fraudon the public; successfully defended the most vulnera-ble in our society — illegal immigrant children whowere victims of abuse — and despite terrible oddshelped clients overcome the impossible to achieveimportant business objectives.

What follows is recognition of the quality of legalwork and achievements accomplished by South Floridalawyers on behalf of their clients.

This exercise is anything but a beauty pageant or apopularity contest. No committee or panel judged thenominees. The nominees were judged by the editorialstaff of the Review based on tangible results.

The Review’s staff conducted a two-month, results-oriented process that focused on client outcomes andthe complexity of cases or deals. Other factors consid-ered by the editors and staff included public-policy sig-nificance and business impact.

The selection process began with more than 130nominations in 14 practice area categories. The editorsmade a first cut, eliminating submitted nominations thatwere incomplete or did not meet the criteria.

The editors then proceeded to evaluate and ranknominees. As a result of this exercise some categorieswere eliminated, and what remained were five to sixsemifinalists in 12 categories.

The editors met to review the semifinalists. In whatproved to be the most difficult eliminations, three tofive finalists were selected in each category. Only twoextremely competitive categories — civil litigation andreal estate — had more than four finalists. The remain-ing categories had one to four finalists.

The Review’s law reporters and several freelancecontributors were then assigned to research and reportout the cases and deals handled by the finalists.

Editor-in-Chief David Lyons and Executive EditorEddie Dominguez met in late November to review thefindings and research by the Review’s staff. In each cat-egory, the editors selected one case, deal or outcomethat featured attorneys worthy of being recognized asSouth Florida’s most effective lawyers.

Still, all of the lawyers featured in today’s specialreport — whether they are finalists or ranked at the topof their categories — deserve recognition. All of theselections published here represent significant achieve-ments on behalf of clients — the ultimate measure forany lawyer.

— The Editors

These attorneys made impressive contributions to their profession

in a variety of specialties, but all have one thing in common:

They served their clients well

Honoring excellence

Bank deal: Hunton & Williams partners Carlos Loumiet, left, and FernandoMargarit represented Panama’s Grupo Banistmo, which was sold to HSBC Holdingsfor $1.77 billion.

A successful acquisition —after two misfires

INTERNATIONAL

I n September 2005, Jose E. Sirven, a partner in Holland& Knight’s Miami office, was approached by Venezuelantelecommunications company Telvenco S.A.

Telvenco, which is controlled by Caracas businessmanOswaldo Cisneros, wanted to dominate the mobile telephoneservice market in Venezuela. To accomplish that goal,

Telvenco sought to purchase Corporacion Digitel C.A., whichwas owned by a Venezuelan subsidiary of Italian companyTelecom Italia.

The catch was that Telvenco also wanted to purchase twoother Venezuelan mobile service providers — Digicel and

Venezuelan telecom deal: Complex connectionsFINALIST

See Sirven, Page AA5

MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2006 • DAILY BUSINESS REVIEW • AA3

I t took nine years and a team of expertscosting millions of dollars. But Miamiattorney Matthew Coglianese finallyconvinced the U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency last year that his clientswere not responsible for contaminating awater wellfield in Davie. In January, a federaljudge signed a final consent decree.

In 1997, Coglianese was chosen to repre-sent 50 companies and governmental enti-ties that were among 3,000 parties notifiedof their financial liability for cleaning up theFlorida Petroleum Reprocessors SuperfundSite in Davie.

For years, thesite was a desig-nated petroleumrecycling spot. Avariety of entities,from the city ofFort Lauderdale tosmall gas stationoperators,dumped used oil

there. But the site became a political hotpotato. Public hearings were held in FortLauderdale after concerns were raisedabout whether the site was contaminating awater wellfield in Davie. The wellfield is amile from the Superfund site — and signifi-cantly uphill.

Coglianese’s task was to negotiate withthe EPA and persuade the agency to assignsome of the cleanup costs — estimated at$15 million in total — to other entities, aswell as to persuade the agency that hisclients were not responsible for the contami-nation of the wellfield. He also was taskedwith developing a “reasonable” cleanup plan.

Coglianese, who heads the environmentalpractice at Peckar & Abramsom in Miami,first hired two teams of environmentalexperts to match the Army Corps ofEngineers, which served as the EPA’sexperts. Coglianese and his experts heldhalf a dozen meetings with the EPA, the U.S.Department of Justice, and the Army Corps

of Engineers in Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale,Miami and Washington.

Negotiations, he said, were “long andhard.”

The EPA wanted to shift the entire cost ofthe $15 million cleanup to Coglianese’sclients. Those clients then would have torecover the costs from the nearly 3,000other users of the site.

Instead, Coglianese persuaded the EPA tobill his clients only about $6 million and goafter the other users directly. That was nosmall feat, he said. “They took the risk ofrecovering the money themselves,”Coglianese said. “Usually they put the riskon a group.”

Then, Coglianese had to persuade theEPA that there was no way the Superfundsite could have polluted the wellfield. Boththe EPA and the city of Fort Lauderdale werepushing for Coglianese’s group to constructa $2 million barrier on the south side of I-595 to block further alleged contaminationof the wellfield.

“The EPA was getting a lot of politicalpressure from the city of Fort Lauderdale,”Coglianese said. “But it was physicallyimpossible for such contamination to occur.”

Eventually, the EPA agreed. The two sidescame to an agreement and presented it toU.S. District Judge Paul C. Huck in Miami forapproval in January.

But even then, Coglianese had anotherobstacle to overcome. At the 11th hour, thecity of Fort Lauderdale filed a motion tointervene and thwart the settlement. JudgeHuck held a meeting among city officials,Justice Department lawyers and Coglianeseto hash out the differences. In January, Huckdenied the city’s motion to intervene andsigned a final consent decree.

Coglianese, 53, an environmental lawyerfor 21 years, attributes his success to “per-sistence and taking the technical high road.We didn’t put out anything outlandish or anyjunk science.”

— Julie Kay

Cleanup man: After a protracted fight, Matthew Coglianese convinced the EnvironmentalProtection Agency his clients didn’t contaminate a water wellfield in Davie.

He spent nine years provingclients didn’t pollute wellfield

ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

I n 2002, Developers of Coral BayInc. purchased 18 submerged lotsin the Lugo Avenue area of CoralGables. The Florida Department of

Environmental Protection denied thedevelopers’ applications for permits tofill the property. That decision was basedon the creation of the Biscayne BayAquatic Preserve, a protected areaestablished by the Florida Legislature in1974.

In 2004, the developer, representedby Miami attorneys Howard Nelson and Mitchell Widom,filed suit, asking the state to pay it for the 18 lots. Nelsonand Widom sought inverse condemnation, in which privatelandowners try to force the government to pay them for

property. DEP attorneys argued that the land

was not rendered useless by the state’sdenial of the developer’s request for fillpermits. The properties could still beused for floating dockage, DEP argued.

The plaintiff argued that the denial ofpermits to fill the land for developmentconstituted a taking of property becauseall practical uses for the property hadbeen eliminated by governmental regula-

tion and restriction. On Aug. 1, the state settled with Nelson’s clients for $7.2

million.Nelson, a partner at Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price &

Axelrod in Miami, focuses on environmental and land-use

law. He said his previous work as a planner with Keith andSchnars, and his work for the South Florida RegionalPlanning Council, help him better understand environmentaland land use issues.

He also had other land use successes this year. Amongthe cases he:

• Represented the developer Shoma Homes in a 400-acre residential development project in western Miami-DadeCounty.

• Handled acquisition and permitting for a 300-acre con-struction and demolition debris landfill near LakeOkeechobee.

• Represented EB Developers in the permitting processfor a 150-acre residential development in Doral.

— Forrest Norman

State pays $7.2 million settlement to purchaser of submerged lotsFINALISTS

Nelson Widom

E F F E C T I V E L A W Y E R S


W hen Far & Wide, a Miami-basedglobal tour operator, filed forbankruptcy with no warning in2003, it stranded 5,000 vaca-

tioners around the world. It didn’t look likethose travelers or thousands of others whoalready had put down deposits — or theemployees who were stiffed on their lastpaychecks — would recoup a penny.

Far & Wide was started in 1998 by twoHarvard-educated lawyers, Phil Bakes andAndrew McKey, who had worked for formerEastern Air Lines chairman Frank Lorenzo.

The company sold “trips of a lifetime” toNorth Americans.It used depositsas a float toexpand the com-pany and boughtmom-and-pop trav-el agenciesaround the coun-try, according toCraig Rasile, the

attorney who represented the OfficialCommittee of Unsecured Creditors in thecase.

By 2001, the company had $305 millionin revenue, 21 divisions and 400 employeesaround the world. Just days before declaringbankruptcy, the company was still sellingtrips. “The company was insolvent 18months before it filed for bankruptcy andshould have filed then,” Rasile said.

During the first four months of the bank-ruptcy, the company sold off all its divisionsas going concerns for $13 million. It hadspent more than $150 million acquiringthose divisions. Rasile took that as an omi-nous sign.

“Once the assets were sold, it was clearthat the remaining $155 million in creditorswould receive barely a penny on the dollarfrom the proceeds generated by the assetsales,” said Rasile, who heads the bankrupt-cy practice at Hunton & Williams in Miami.

But Rasile joined forces with the U.S. TourOperators Association and went after theofficers and directors of the company forbreach of fiduciary duty and negligence. He

announced his intentions to recover moniesfrom the officers and directors in his reorga-nization plan and also threatened to file alawsuit against them. He said he’s holdingoff on the suit because mediation is sched-uled for January.

His proposed liquidation plan contained aprovision that has never before been putforth in a bankruptcy court in Florida. Itlegally assigned the individual claims of anycreditor against the directors and officers toa directors and officers trust, which couldprosecute those claims on behalf of thecreditors.

The company’s former directors and offi-cers vigorously fought the plan, arguing forconversion of the case to Chapter 7. AChapter 7 trustee’s claims against the for-mer directors and officers would be limitedto only the claims that the debtor itselfcould have brought against them.

The officers and directors hired heavy-weight lawyers, including Adam Harris ofSchulte Roth & Zabel in New York and NickGravante, the Boies Schiller & Flexner lawyerwho represents former American InternationalGroup chief executive Maurice “Hank”Greenberg in an accounting fraud case. Fivecontested, all-day hearings were held through-out 2005 before Judge Robert A. Mark of theU.S. Bankruptcy Court in Miami.

“We had to do a lot of legal jockeying toget this done,” Rasile said. “But Judge Markwas intrigued by our plan.”

Despite the protestations and protractedlitigation, Mark ultimately confirmed Rasile’splan in December 2005. The order wasappealed in U.S. District Court, where oralarguments were heard Sept. 22. No rulinghas been made. As of yet, no monies havebeen returned to the unsecured creditors.

Rasile, 45, has been practicing bankrupt-cy law for 17 years. He currently is servingas a receiver for the U.S. Securities andExchange Commission for a $1.2 billionhedge fund. He cites the Far & Wide caseas among the five most complex bankrupt-cies he has ever handled.

— Julie Kay

Complex journey: Craig Rasile’s plan assigned creditor claims against directors and officers to a trust.

Unique liquidation proposalearns judge’s approval

BANKRUPTCY


SIRVEN From Page AA2

Infonet Redes de Informacion. If Telvenco’sCisneros couldn’t have all three, he didn’twant any of the companies.

That gave Sirven pause. “Closing one deal is complicated in and of

itself,” Sirven said. In this case, he had to“make sure that you’vegot three deals, all ofwhich get documented,signed and closed, ornone of them get docu-mented, signed andclosed.”

Sirven worked formonths on the deal. Healso worked in conjunc-tion with the lawyershandling the other two acquisitions. InJanuary, Telvenco agreed to pay $425 mil-lion for the common stock of CorporacionDigitel. The deal closed in May. With theother two acquisitions, Telvenco expandedits network in Venezuela to cover the entirecountry.

Sirven said another big hurdle was the

strict foreign exchange rules in Venezuela.“Part of the challenge for us was to obtainthe dollars that we needed to pay for thebusiness through the regulatory maze thatexisted in Venezuela,” he said.

Even though the deal included the pur-chase of a Venezuelan business by aVenezuelan buyer from an Italian seller,Cisneros wanted Sirven to structure the dealunder U.S. law. “Large, sophisticated clientslike to do deals under U.S. law, where possi-ble,” Sirven said.

Sirven originally was hired for thisVenezuelan job partly because Cisneros hada close working relationship with TinocoTravieso Planchart & Nunez, a Caracas lawfirm allied with Holland & Knight.

Sirven said that the policies ofVenezuela’s leftist President Hugo Chavezwere not a big worry for his client. “All Iknow is our client is Venezuelan and I guesshe’s got faith in the future, because other-wise he wouldn’t have done this deal,”Sirven said.

— Daniel Ostrovsky

Sirven

G reenberg Traurig shareholderPedro Martinez-Fraga scoredseveral successes this year inlocating hidden funds in Miami

allegedly swindled by former Chilean dicta-tor Augusto Pinochet.

Martinez-Fraga is Chile’s lead counsel inthe U.S. in the criminal prosecution ofPinochet. He’s being prosecuted for corrup-tion before a special appellate tribunal inSantiago.

In March, Martinez-Fraga announced thatmore than 100Pinochet-linkedaccounts had beenlocated. Twice thisyear, he forced discov-ery over the objectionsof bank representa-tives, eventually locat-ing about $9.5 millionand compelling produc-tion of eight hours ofdeposition testimony and thousands ofpages of financial documents.

Martinez-Fraga said he has located atotal of about $200 million in Pinochet-linked funds.

Martinez-Fraga said the elderly Pinochet’smoney is a moving target. “There are peo-ple hiding these assets, and moving themevery day,” he said. “There are more than ahundred accounts linked to Pinochet outthere.”

Efforts to uncover Pinochet’s money haveled to multiple discovery hearings in U.S.District Court in Miami. South Florida iswhere much of the money is located. “Bitby bit, we have uncovered more and moreof this money, and we add new accountsregularly,” Martinez-Fraga said. “That’s thenature of searching for international funds influx.”

There is much more Pinochet-linkedmoney to be found, Martinez-Fraga said,though he added it won’t be an easy task tolocate the funds.

“It’s a tremendous challenge poring overthese documents and bank records,” thelawyer said. “It’s not just a quantitative chal-lenge of plowing through all the paperwork.It’s the qualitative challenge of spotting thequestionable numbers and transactions.”

— Forrest Norman

Tracking down a dictator’s treasure

Martinez-Fraga

FINALIST

INTERNATIONAL


P roposals to move Miami-DadeCounty’s urban developmentboundary are only considered onceevery two years, and then almost

all of them are turned down. This year wasno exception.

When the County Commission took up thecontroversial issue in August, eight of thenine requests to open up more of the countyfor development and encroach further intothe Everglades failed.

The only application approved by the com-mission — with just one negative vote —

included 349acres of landbelonging to theMiami Lakes-based GrahamCos. An earlierproposal to bringthat land withinthe boundary hadbeen dismissedbefore it even

reached the commission. A key force forthat August decision was the Graham Cos.’attorney and lobbyist, Greenberg Traurigshareholder Kerri L. Barsh, a veteran ofmany county regulatory struggles.

Part of her winning strategy was to attachthe Graham proposal to a larger UDB expan-sion application submitted by the city ofHialeah that was backed by a number ofhigh-powered political and financial leaders.It included what many believed was a sweet-ener for some county officials — the city ofHialeah’s offer to sell 17 acres of the newland for a new stadium for the FloridaMarlins baseball team.

The original Hialeah application includedalmost 800 acres of land for industrial andcommercial development, a public park anda new fire station.

The Graham piggybacking maneuver,which Barsh said was suggested by mem-bers of the county planning and zoningdepartment staff, was not warmly welcomedby Hialeah officials. “But they didn’t mind aslong as we didn’t cost them votes,” Barshsaid.

Still, throughout the process, she fearedthat there might be attempts to split the

Graham and Hialeah proposals. Much of herattention was focused on making sure nosplit occurred.

While linking up with Hialeah had advan-tages, Barsh said, it also posed problems.

“We had to work together and coordinateour efforts, and we had to be consistent inour arguments.”

The initial county staff support for theGraham project faded as fierce and well-

organized opposition developed. “There wasso much fear that every decision to movethe line would be taken as a precedent,”Barsh said. “We had to convince them thatthis wouldn’t lead to more and more urbansprawl.”

She rolled out maps and aerial photo-graphs to buttress her argument that theGraham Cos.’ parcel logically belonged with-in the development boundary. If Hialeah’srequest were granted, she pointed out, “wewould have been the only remaining landeast of the Turnpike that was still not includ-ed.”

Moreover, on the west side of theTurnpike there were lakes created by rockmining operations. That would make furtherdevelopment due west of the Graham Cos.’parcel all but impossible, thus reducing thefuture threat of sprawl.

Opponents also claimed the developmentplanned under both proposals posed prob-lems of overloaded transportation and inade-quate water supplies.

Barsh successfully responded with acovenant promising close regulation oftransportation and assurances that theplanned industrial development would notgenerate the water demands of residentialuse. The same arguments also were effec-tive in overcoming late reservations of theFlorida Department of Community Affairs.

But county staff professionals were onlythe first hurdle, according to Barsh. Thecounty commissioners remained.

“I had an uphill battle from the start,” sherecalled. “You start with just a general senti-ment against ever moving the line, and thenyou have to get a supermajority.”

In the end, Barsh said the proposal pre-vailed because it “was just good commonsense.”

As attorney for a number of rock miningcompanies, Barsh is no stranger to contro-versy. But she described the 17-month UDBprocess as one of the toughest and mostcomplicated she has tackled. “So manyhearings, so many stakeholders, a toughbattle from start to finish.”

— Dan Cordtz

Winning strategy: Kerri L. Barsh helped get 349 acres owned by the Graham Cos. movedwithin the urban development boundary.

Shifting urban boundary:Hard work, clever tactics

LOBBYING/LAND USE

M iami attorney Albert Dotson negotiated severallayers of complex governmental regulations tofacilitate two mixed-use developments to bebuilt around existing

Metrorail stations in Miami’s Overtownand just west of Coconut Grove.

The projects were public-private jointventures designed to make better use ofland at the Metrorail sites. “There were alot of moving parts that combined com-munity, politics and the law,” saidDotson, a partner at Bilzin SumbergBaena Price & Axelrod in Miami who rep-resented Development and Land Group,

which initiated the projects. “At points it was like herdingcats.”

At the Overtown station, just north of the GovernmentCenter in downtown Miami, the plan was to build an officetower with some residential and retail space. The finaldesign called for the elimination of the residential compo-nent because the office tenants required more space. Thatexpanded office space in turn made the project moreviable.

Construction began more than a year ago, but the doorshave not yet opened on the project. Previously, there hadbeen virtually no development in that immediate area.

The project was initiated by Taylor Development and LandGroup, which sold some of its interest to a Virginia-based

company called NGP Overtown. A third partner in the jointventure is Agnes Rainbow Village Development, a nonprofitMiami economic development organization.

The Coconut Grove project will be located at the CoconutGrove Metrorail stop at U.S. 1 and 27th Avenue. Plans therecall for a mix of commercial, residential, and retail space,with a possibility of a hotel component as well. Some sitework has been done, but construction has not yet begun inearnest.

Dotson said the most complicated issue in the two proj-ects was dealing with the myriad of federal, county and cityregulations, which he helped his clients navigate. Becausethe federal government helps fund the Metrorail project, the

With government rules unsnarled, Miami transit projects moved aheadFINALIST

DotsonSee Dotson, Page AA7


developers had to follow federal rules onusing disadvantaged and minority business-es and contractors to complete the proj-ects.

Since the county owns the Metrorail sta-tions and the land they sit on, the new build-ings had to comply with county regulationsas well as city zoning laws.

Even harder, Dotson said, was that some-times various regulations were at odds witheach other, including rules on height limita-tions and setback limitations. To resolve zon-ing and other inconsistencies, Dotson andhis team had to lobby the city or the countyto waive portions of their respective rules.

For example, the original terms of thejoint venture with the county required resi-dential space in the Overtown projectbecause the idea was to reduce the needfor people to commute. But as the housingmarket in Miami softened, the county real-ized that expanding the office space was abetter way of proceeding with construction,he said.

The city-county elements were the tough-est part, Dotson said. “When you go to cityor county, that’s the dance that becomes dif-ficult,” he explained. There also were signifi-cant easement and air rights issues to dealwith, he said.

Projects like the two Metrorail joint ven-tures exemplify responsible communitydevelopment, Dotson said. “You’ve got acommunity component, you’re developingalong a transit corridor and it’s going verti-cal in hopes that it will reduce traffic impactin our community.”

— Carl Jones

Dawn Meyers of BergerSingerman in Fort Lauderdalespearheaded a successful lobby-ing effort to persuade Broward

County authorities to open the news andgifts concession of the Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport to competi-tive bidding for the first time in twodecades.

For 22 years, a single company, Atlanta-based Paradies Shops,had the contract to sellnewspapers, books andmagazines, along withlocal mementos like T-shirts, caps and coffeemugs. Meyers’ effortpersuaded the BrowardCounty Commission inMarch to put the con-tract out to bid. The

commission also decided to split the sin-gle contract for the four terminals into twoseparate contracts covering two terminalseach.

The bids on those contracts will guaran-tee the county more than $13 million ayear.

Meyers represented the EastRutherford, N.J.-based Hudson Group,which operates concessions in more than50 airports around the country, includingNew York, Los Angeles, Chicago andAtlanta.

On Tuesday, a county committee select-

ed Hudson to operate concessions in halfof the airport. Paradies, which long domi-nated the retail operations at the airport,was picked to operate the other half. Thecontracts must still be approved by thecounty commission, but with nine commis-sioners sitting on the committee that madethe decision, approval is expected.

Meyers said Paradies had kept the con-tract by simply extending it over more thantwo decades. Her main argument was thatopening up the contract to bid would cre-ate competition, benefiting the county andtravelers. She argued competition wouldmean more revenue for the county, morecapital improvements at the airport andbetter stores for customers.

She said the hardest obstacle was per-suading the county commissioners to goagainst the status quo.

“You had a 22-year incumbent who hadestablished contacts, was well known andfirmly entrenched in the airport and in themarket,” Meyers said. “And that was ahuge hurdle to overcome.”

Meyers did significant research on air-port concessions agreements, worked topersuade each of the nine county commis-sioners individually and argued her client’sposition at board and committee meetingsfor more than a year.

Paradies made a last-ditch effort to holdonto the contract. In July, the companysent a letter to the commissioners sayingit would make substantial capital improve-

ments in its concessions operations andchange its payment arrangement to bene-fit the county.

“When we got a hold of that letter, that’swhen we knew we were on the right track,”she said. The letter gave Meyers tangibleproof that they could get a better deal. “Igot to wave that letter around and say, ‘Itold you, I told you. This is what the merethreat of competition brings you. Imaginewhat will happen when you have real com-petition.’ ”

Winning for her client was a “slow,tedious process” in which the CountyCommission was often evenly divided. InMarch, the commission adopted herclient’s model for the contract.

Four companies including Paradies andHudson have submitted bids, and a selec-tion committee has recommended bothcompanies to the commission for a deci-sion in January. Paradies is claiming thatHudson did not properly answer all thequestions the commission asked of thebidders.

In the end, Meyers said her job wasmade easier because her researchshowed that opening up the concessionscontract made good business sense.

“I had the beauty of having facts on myside, that’s a real benefit,” she said.

Meyers has worked for nearly 12 yearsin governmental relations.

— Carl Jones

Broward a winner in airport concession case

Meyers

DOTSON From Page AA6 FINALIST


Elliot H. Scherker and David L.Ross, shareholders at GreenbergTraurig in Miami; Alvin B. Davis,managing partner of Squire

Sanders & Dempsey in Miami; and WendyF. Lumish, a partner at Carlton Fields inMiami, persuaded the Florida SupremeCourt to throw out the record $145 billionpunitive damage award against five majortobacco companies.

The state’s high court agreed in July withthe 3rd District Court of Appeal that the2000 award by a Miami-Dade Circuit Courtjury was “excessive as a matter of law.”

While theSupreme Courtdecertified theEngle class, italso said Floridasmokers or theirsurvivors may pro-ceed with individ-ual liability suitsagainst the tobac-

co companies and that they have one yearto file them. The court majority said key lia-bility findings by the jury in Engle — thatsmoking causes diseases and that thetobacco companies engaged in deceptivepractices to cover up the health risks oftheir products — will not have to be relitigat-ed.

Scherker argued the case before theSupreme Court and the 3rd DCA on behalfof all of the defendants in Howard Engle, etal. v. Liggett Group et al., except Liggett,which was represented by Davis.

“It certainly was one of the great chal-lenges of a legal career that’s now past its30th year,” he said.

Scherker said one of his greatest chal-lenges was to review the trial record, whichat more than 50,000 pages was perhapsthe longest in Florida history.

Ross, the lead trial counsel for Lorillard,helped Scherker assemble briefs and pre-pare for arguments throughout the appellatestage.

“The biggest challenge on appeal wasgetting your hands around the case and try-ing to focus on which issues were going tobe pursued on appeal and which you justdidn’t have time to pursue,” Ross said.

That was echoed by Lumish, who was theFlorida counsel for R.J. Reynolds and wasinvolved in every stage of the appellate pro-ceedings, including strategizing, brief writingand assisting in preparing the oral argu-ment.

“The toughest part of the appeal was tak-ing three years worth of a trial and formulat-ing that into arguments that an appellatecourt could understand, focus on andaddress,” she said.

Davis represented Liggett on appeal. Hismaverick client admitted at trial that smok-ing was harmful and earlier turned overpotentially incriminating documents to statessuing the cigarette industry.

“The question became how to frame anargument that reflected our separate situa-tion and yet didn’t look like we were goingafter the other manufacturers because I did-n’t think that was going to be a meaningfuldistinction to anyone,” Davis said.

The class action suit was filed in 1994 onbehalf of sick Florida smokers led by Engle,a Miami Beach pediatrician. The group

claimed they became illby smoking an addictiveproduct that cigarettemakers denied wasunsafe even though theyknew for decades that itcaused disease.

The other defendantswere industry leaderPhilip Morris, Brown &Williamson and R.J.

Reynolds. The trial ended in July 2000 aftera two-year, three-part trial before CircuitJudge Robert Kaye. After granting compen-satory damages to three class representa-tives, the jury issued the biggest punitiveaward in U.S. history.


The wining team: David L. Ross of Greenberg Traurig, Alvin B. Davis of Squire Sanders,Elliot H. Scherker of Greenberg Traurig and Wendy F. Lumish of Carlton Fields, inset atright, who was unable to attend the group photo session.

Massive tobacco awardsnuffed out

APPELLATE

I f Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez can persuade vot-ers to approve a change in county government makinghis office stronger, he’ll owe Bruce Rogow a debt ofgratitude.

Rogow, a Fort Lauderdale appellateattorney and Nova SoutheasternUniversity law professor, represents thepolitical action committee trying to putthe strong-mayor initiative on the ballotin Miami-Dade.

He persuaded a three-judge panel ofthe 3rd District Court of Appeal to over-turn a ruling by Miami-Dade Circuit JudgeMichael Genden, who concluded the bal-lot proposal violated Florida’s Constitution.

The measure would give the mayor the power to adminis-ter county government and hire and fire the county managerand department heads, currently duties held by the manag-er and County Commission.

Genden ruled the proposal would diminish the commis-sion’s constitutionally appointed role as the county’s govern-ing body. Rogow argued and the appellate panel agreedthat the change was primarily administrative and did notaffect the commission’s constitutional standing.

The appellate panel ruled in May, and the FloridaSupreme Court refused to hear the case in September.

Rogow’s first legal experience was representing civilrights workers in Mississippi in 1965 and 1966. He cameto Miami in 1967 and began a career that has spanned thespectrum of appellate law. He is easily recognized by his

trademark bow tie.“I’ve represented rich men, poor men, beggar men and

thieves, doctors, lawyers and Indian chiefs,” Rogowquipped. “This is literally so.”

Rogow successfully defended then-Seminole Chief JamesBillie in 1987 after he killed and ate a Florida panther, claim-ing it was his cultural and religious right to do so. The ver-dict hinged on whether the panther was a pureblood catprotected by the Endangered Species Act.

When he’s not busy with Indian chiefs, the attorney hastaught at Nova Southeastern University’s law school, andundertaken an eclectic mix of appellate cases. He hasargued 11 cases in the U.S. Supreme Court, more than anyother Florida lawyer.

— Forrest Norman

Bruce Rogow succeeds in getting Miami-Dade County strong-mayor issue on ballot

FINALIST

Rogow

Lumish


H olland & Knight associate LeonFresco won an important casethat will make it easier for abusedyoung illegal immigrants to remain

in the United States.Fresco, who exclusively does pro bono

work as a Chesterfield Smith Fellow at hisfirm, represented J.A.G., an illegal immigrantfrom Honduras.

The young manwas abandonedby his mother andbeat up by hisstepparents. Hecame to this coun-try at 17 andproperly filed hispetition for specialimmigrant juvenile

status with the U.S. Citizenship andImmigration Services. But he turned 18before the agency made a decision on hisapplication.

To gain lawful permanent resident status,illegal immigrants between the ages of 18and 21, under federal law, must apply forspecial immigrant juvenile status with thefederal agency. Prior to filing the application,these young people also have to bedeclared dependent in state juvenile courts.By federal law, both the declaration and theapplication must be completed before theperson’s 18th birthday.

Until last year, illegal immigrants in Floridacould remain under the dependency jurisdic-tion of the juvenile court system only untiltheir 18th birthday. In some other states,juveniles could remain dependent throughthe age of 21.

Florida state law meant that juveniles withmeritorious petitions for special immigrantjuvenile were in danger of being deported ifthe federal agency failed to grant their peti-tion by the time they turned 18.

Last year, however, the Florida

Legislature passed a law that made it possi-ble for illegal young immigrants to remain ondependency status until their 22nd birthday— but only if they were applying for specialimmigrant juvenile status with the federalagency.

Nevertheless, the federal agency’s Miamioffice took the position that the state lawwas enacted solely to get around the federalstatute. It refused to grant any juvenile peti-tions that relied on the new state law.

Fresco convinced the AdministrativeAppeals Office of the federal agency thatJ.A.G. and other young immigrants in thesame situation should be able to rely on theFlorida statute and should not be deported.In May, the Administrative Appeals Officeheld that illegal young immigrants in Floridawho are neglected and are between theages of 18 and 21 are eligible for specialimmigrant juvenile status under the newstate law.

“Most people thought this was going tobe a losing case,” Fresco said.

Fresco will spend more than 2,700 hoursthis year on pro bono work. If he were to billat $250 an hour, that would translate to a$675,000 contribution by Holland & Knightto legal services for the poor, not includingFresco’s salary.

Over the past year, Fresco has helpedabout 75 immigrants from 15 countries fac-ing immigration status problems remain inthe United States. None of his clients hasbeen deported so far.


Immigration victory kept75-case streak alive

PRO BONO

I n April, Carlton Fields board chairman BenjamineReid won a $47 million federal verdict for victimsof a former Honduran military official in a humanrights case.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard issued a default rul-ing that former Honduran NationalInvestigations Directorate chief JuanLopez Grijalba was liable under theAlien Tort Claims Act for the abduc-tion of a student leader in 1981,the murder of a student in 1982and the torture of two people inTegucigalpa in 1982. After a non-jury trial on damages, Lenardawarded $47 million to the plain-tiffs.

Reid, a Carlton Fields shareholder in Miami, was leadcounsel for the plaintiffs. He represented them on a

pro bono basis. They included the relatives of twodeceased Grijalba victims, as well as Oscar and GloriaReyes, journalism professors who were kidnapped andtortured for months by Grijalba.

Grijalba was not present or represented at the trial.He was deported by the United States.

“We don’t know if the money is collectible,” Reidsaid. “We believe there are people in the Hondurangovernment who might be interested in helping us col-lect. But the important thing is that this trial helpedbring closure. This gave these victims and the victims’families a chance to air their grievances.”

Reid also serves on the board of the Florida JusticeInstitute, which recruits lawyers for pro bono cases,and contributes his time — as much as 5 percent ofhis total hours in recent years — to pro bono work.

— Forrest Norman

Settlement may be uncollectible, but Honduran victims get closure

FINALISTS

Reid

Follow the leader: Holland & Knight associate Leon Fresco with a photo of thelate Chesterfield Smith, the firm’s championof pro bono service. Fresco helped anabused Honduran teen remain in the U.S.

W hen Howard Talenfeld was first appointed in late2004 as attorney ad litem on a pro bono basis forminor J.W. in a dependency case against his parents,he quickly saw the state would need to provide addi-

tional services once the boy turned 18 years old.A founding partner at Colodny Fass

Talenfeld Karlinsky & Abate in Fort Lauderdale,Talenfeld said his client, a high school junior,was reading at no more than a third-gradelevel.

Despite IQ testing that confirmed significantverbal problems caused by J.W.’s left hemi-sphere brain damage, the Florida Departmentof Children & Families denied him Medicaidbenefits.

The state-run Medicaid program is supposedto provide health coverage to all low-income developmentally dis-

Victory overcomes ‘arbitrary’Medicaid guidelines

Talenfeld

See Talenfeld, Page AA11


W hen the father of a Washington,D.C., teenager filed a classaction lawsuit against half adozen manufacturers and dis-

tributors of alcoholic beverages in late2003, alarm bells rang loudly throughout theindustry.

Ayman R. Hakki alleged that brewers anddistillers had, by persuasively advertisingbeer and liquor, induced youngsters like hisson to buy alcohol illegally with money pro-vided by their parents. This, he said, consti-tuted unjust enrichment and negligence onthe part of the defendants.

His requestedremedy was “reim-bursement” by theindustry of allthose dollars —estimated by theplaintiffs atupwards of a bil-lion dollars a year— and all the

money that might be spent on booze byunderage drinkers in the future.

The total was, quite literally, unimagin-able. Some attorneys predicted anotherlegal feeding frenzy like the one that previ-ously had hit the tobacco industry.

Similar suits — with plaintiffs largely rep-resented by the same coalition of classaction lawyers — were filed in Florida,Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, WestVirginia and North Carolina.

But up to now, not one of the suits hasreached a jury or has even been certified asa class action. Two veteran litigators fromthe Miami office of Hunton & Williams haveplayed leading roles in heading off thepotential disaster for their client, Miami-based Bacardi USA Inc.

Briefs written by Marty Steinberg,Hunton’s Miami managing partner, and part-ner Jeffrey W. Gutchess have helped per-suade judges in all those jurisdictions tothrow out the cases. Their defense has been

so successful that the Florida suit, filed inFort Lauderdale in March of last year, hasbeen dismissed for lack of prosecution.

Although appeals are pending in severalof the cases, judges so far have acceptedthe arguments made by Steinberg andGutchess that the plaintiffs have failed toshow that advertising for alcohol productsdeliberately targets underage drinkers; thatsuch advertising is responsible for youthfulpurchases of beer and liquor; or that themanufacturers have any responsibility topolice teenagers for their parents and pre-vent them from committing the crime ofunderage purchase of alcoholic beverages.

These victories on legal grounds werevitally important in keeping the cases awayfrom juries, which can be a wild card.

“Corporate defendants always prefer tohave cases decided by a judge on the law,rather than by a jury that may be swayed byemotion,” Steinberg said. “Not that we’d beafraid of a jury, because I think they couldfigure it out. But it’s always preferable if acase can be decided by the judge on thelaw.”

Gutchess added that “it’s much bettereven to keep the cases from reaching thediscovery stage. It’s easy to imagine plain-tiffs digging up some really objectionable adthat some agency dreamed up that wouldbe damaging even if it was never used oreven seriously considered.”

Hunton & Williams has counted Bacardiamong its most important clients for manyyears and has handled a variety of the com-pany’s cases. But none of those cases,Gutchess said, ever posed a financial threatto the liquor giant that compares with these“reimbursement” lawsuits.

Although he and Steinberg express confi-dence they will continue to prevail, he cau-tioned that the plaintiffs “only have to winone of these cases. We have to win themall.”

— Dan CordtzRecord of success: Veteran litigators Marty Steinberg, left, and Jeffrey W. Gutchess havehelped liquor giant Bacardi USA avoid damaging lawsuits.

Duo heads off potential class action threat to Bacardi, spirits industry

CLASS ACTION

Paul Geller, a partner at LerachCoughlin Stoia Geller Rudman &Robbins in Boca Raton, won anappeal before the 4th District Court

of Appeal in a class action case that couldhave far-reaching implications for how healthmanagement organizations pay emergencyroom doctors in Florida.

In October, a 4th DCApanel reinstated the suit,which claims that HMOswere illegally paying out-of-network emergencyroom doctors well underthe going rate. The suit isbased on the state HMOAct. A Palm Beach Circuitjudge had dismissed it.

Under Florida law, emergency room doc-tors must treat any patient who comesthrough the door, regardless of insurancestatus. Health insurers then are required topay the doctors the lesser of either the usualand customary fees for similar services with-in the community, or a mutually agreed-oncharge, within 60 days of a claim.

According to the suit, which was filed onbehalf of emergency room doctors in Florida,health insurers were paying 120 percent ofMedicare reimbursement rates. Lawyers forthe class argued that this was below theusual and customary fees for similar servicesin the community.

The named plaintiff is South Florida ortho-pedist Peter Merkle. The HMOs named as

Revived suit could impact how HMOs pay ER doctors

FINALISTS

Geller

E ugene Stearns and MonaMarkus of Stearns Weaver MillerWeissler Alhadeff & Sitterson led asuccessful battle to win a bigger

share of the hundreds of millions of dollarsin legal fees in the ExxonMobil class actionlawsuit in Miami federal court.

After 11,000 gasstation operators set-tled their suit, thelawyers who moved inand out of the caseover its 15-year historybegan debating how tosplit 31.33 percent ofthe $1.1 billion award.

In July, U.S. DistrictJudge Alan Gold in

Miami awarded Stearns Weaver 75 percentof the $325 million in legal fees, anincrease over the 25 percent it would havereceived under a contested 1996 feearrangement with Pertnoy Solowsky &Allen, which recruited Stearns Weaver.

Stearns Weaverclaimed it was misledinto agreeing to thearrangement by notbeing told how muchwork was left to do.

Pertnoy Solowskyfiled documents lastyear claiming it had justlearned that StearnsWeaver did not intend

Success in fee fight nothingto be embarrassed about

Stearns Markus

See Geller, Page AA11 See Stearns/Markus, Page AA11


TALENFELD From Page AA9

abled Florida residents. But the administrationof Gov. Jeb Bush has taken aggressive stepsto cut Medicaid spending, including contro-versial moves to remove some vulnerablegroups from eligibility.

DCF’s stated reason for the denial was thatsubsections of J.W.’s IQ test scores were afew points higher than the cutoff score of 69.

But after Talenfeld’s victory in a recent appel-late case, J.W. and other Floridians who scoretoo high on certain sections of the IQ test stillwill be able to receive Medicaid benefits, aslong as they lack the functional skills needed toindependently survive in the community.

Talenfeld argued his client’s case threetimes — once before a dependency divisionjudge and twice at hearings before DCF offi-cers. When an administrative hearing officerdenied J.W.’s application for Medicaid waiverservices through the Agency for Persons withDisabilities, Talenfeld appealed to the 4thDistrict Court of Appeal.

In October, a 4th DCA panel unanimouslyreversed the administrative hearing officers’ruling and remanded the case for further pro-ceedings. “We agree that the hearing officerused an erroneous legal standard in uphold-ing the agency’s denial of his application forwaiver services,” the court said in an opinionwritten by Judge Martha Warner.

Talenfeld said this decision opens the doorfor hundreds of people in J.W.’s situation toobtain Medicaid coverage. “This opinion con-

firms what I’ve always believed — that thosestandards are arbitrary and they have beenarbitrarily enforced in eligibility determina-tions.”

The case will go back to a hearing officeror an administrative law judge. But Talenfeldsaid he hopes DCF will recognize his client iseligible for Medicaid coverage without theneed for another hearing.

Beyond the J.W. case, Talenfeld, 53, hasdedicated hundreds of hours a year to help-ing children. In 2002, he founded Florida’sChildren First, a statewide nonprofit childadvocacy organization devoted to protectingthe legal rights of at-risk children.

In the past year, Talenfeld also has workedthrough Florida’s Children First to help obtainan $8 million legislative appropriation for theguardian ad litem program.

On a pro bono basis, he is representing aFort Lauderdale woman who wants to adopta mentally disabled 6-year-old boy sufferingfrom a brain injury resulting from being shak-en as a baby. Talenfeld said his organizationplans to use this case to lobby theLegislature to boost funding for people willingto adopt children with disabilities.

Talenfeld said he is drawn to cases involv-ing developmentally disabled childrenbecause his younger sister Bess, 40, is men-tally retarded. Talenfeld became Bess’guardian in 2001 after their mother died.

— Jordana Mishory

GELLER From Page AA10

defendants in the suit include Aetna Health,Vista Healthplan, Neighborhood HealthPartnership and Health Options.

Attorneys for the HMOs had argued thateven if Merkle had a valid claim, he wouldhave to seek redress through arbitration.

Palm Beach Circuit Judge Jonathan Gerberhad dismissed the suit, finding that Merkledid not have a private right of action underthe state HMO Act. He also ruled that theHMOs received no benefit from Merkle,therefore the doctor had no valid claim forunjust enrichment.

But the 4th DCA panel reinstated three ofthe four claims in the original suit. The appel-late court agreed that the plaintiff class had aright of action under the HMO Act and thatarbitration hearings are not the only avenuefor review of a claim. The court also said thatsince there is an actual dispute between thetwo parties, not just a hypothetical dispute, arequest for declaratory relief is appropriate.

Geller said the seriousness with which theHMOs took this case was indicated by thefact that they were represented before the4th DCA by prominent Washington, D.C.,attorney Miguel Estrada of Gibson Dunn &Crutcher, who was nominated for an appel-late court position by President Bush.

Geller called the 4th DCA ruling an “enor-mous” victory that will change the way HMOspay doctors.

In addition to the HMO case, Geller helpedrepresent a class consisting of motor vehicledrivers in a case against West Palm Beach-based Fidelity Federal.

The bank was accused of violating the fed-eral Driver’s Privacy Protection Act by pur-chasing the names and addresses of newvehicle owners from the state. In July,Fidelity Federal agreed to a $50 million classaction settlement.

— Rebecca Riddick

STEARNS/MARKUS From Page AA10

to honor the 1996 agreement even thoughStearns says the firms disagreed over thearrangement almost from the beginning.

Stearns said his firm’s only obstacle togetting a larger piece of the pie was convinc-ing Judge Gold that his firm’s lawyers earnedthe money.

Stearns said that was the easy part. He called Pertnoy Solowsky’s argument “a

silly position because no federal judge in thecountry has ever found such an agreementto be enforceable, and we didn’t think thatJudge Gold would be the first.”

Stearns, who led the trial team, said: “Hewatched our work. He had certainly seenwho did what.”

Stearns Weaver also had to show howeach firm claiming a stake in the fee con-

tributed to the win and establish the value oftheir contribution, something that Stearnsconcedes is a thoroughly subjective analysis.

By using a variety of visual aids, Stearnsand Markus demonstrated that simply lookingat billing records was not a good way to prop-erly estimate the value of each firm’s work.

Stearns said he doesn’t think the firmdeserves any special recognition for its$149 million payday.

“The litigation over fees is an embarrass-ment, frankly,” he said. Stearns insists hisfirm was ready to accept whatever portion ofthe fee Judge Gold felt was fair.

“What makes this unique is we didn’t worryabout it,” he said.

— Carl Jones


M iami solo attorney PatrickScott said he started lookinginto Miami’s infamous fire-feecase out of sheer curiosity.

What he uncovered turned into a victory forMiami taxpayers and a legal and politicaldebacle for Miami Mayor Manny Diaz, then-City Manager Joe Arriola and attorney HankAdorno.

Scott was checking on a class-actioncase filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court byproperty owners seeking restitution for afire-rescue fee assessed on property taxpay-ers in the 1990s. In 2004, Miami-Dade

Circuit JudgePeter Lopez saidthe fee was illegalafter the FloridaSupreme Courtruled in 2002 thatemergency med-ical service couldnot be funded byspecial assess-

ment. Estimates of the full refund amountexceeded $20 million.

“I kept checking the public documents,but I couldn’t get the information I wanted,”Scott said. “Then the docket showed that itwas settled, but there wasn’t really a publicannouncement and the settlement seemedto remain a secret. That’s when I startedtalking to Richard and Michael.”

Scott called his friends Michael G. Petit,a trial lawyer with a Miami solo practice, andRichard Williams, another solo practitionerwho generally handles complex commerciallitigation.

The three attorneys formally intervened inthe case and uncovered the settlement’snow-notorious details.

Before the class was certified, the cityhad negotiated a $7 million settlement withthe seven individual named plaintiffs. Noother taxpayers would receive compensa-

tion. The statute of limitations had run outbefore the settlement became publicknowledge.

That left thousands of other Miami tax-payers out in the cold. Adorno & Yoss wasordered to pay back the $1 million in feesit already had received, out of a $2 milliontotal legal fee.

Scott, Petit and Williams then intervenedon behalf of a new group of plaintiffs,which was allowed to replace the originalplaintiffs as class representatives. InMarch, Judge Lopez ruled that the sevenoriginal beneficiaries of the $7 million pay-out would have to give the money back.

The fire-fee case did political damage toMiami’s popular mayor and his controver-sial city manager, who resigned not longafter Judge Lopez’s ruling. In addition, thecase triggered a Florida Bar ethics investi-gations into the conduct of Diaz, Adorno,city attorney Jorge Fernandez and formerassistant city attorney Charles Mays. TheBar investigation is pending.

— Forrest Norman

Patrick Scott, Michael G. Petit and RichardWilliams uncovered Miami’s $7 million settlement with the seven individuals.

Fire-fee case: Taxpayerswon, others got burned

PUBLIC INTEREST

R andall Marshall, legal director forthe American Civil Liberties Unionof Florida, has had a tiring but suc-cessful year.

The First Amendment and other civil liber-ties have been under repeated assault inFlorida, and Marshall and his colleagues have

successfully fought toprotect the rights ofFloridians.

In June 2006, theACLU filed suit in U.S.District Court in Miamiagainst the Miami-DadeCounty School Board forbanning the book “Vamosa Cuba” from schoollibraries. The children’s

book, which is part of a series on the lives ofchildren in different countries, favorably por-trays life in Cuba under the Fidel Castro gov-ernment.

In a nationally watched case, the ACLUargued that the book ban violated the FirstAmendment. Judge Alan S. Gold ruled in theACLU’s favor, stating that the board’s deci-sion to ban the book was improperly motivat-ed by political viewpoint, as opposed to edu-cation policy. The School Board hasappealed the ruling.

The ACLU also filed a First Amendmentsuit in the Southern District of Florida chal-lenging the constitutionality of a new statelaw effectively banning state university pro-fessors and students from traveling to Cuba,

State’s top rights defenderwill never be short of work

FINALISTS

Marshall

ort Lauderdale attorney FranklinZemel says he gets no joy out ofsuing cities. But he’s good at it.

The Arnstein & Lehr partner rep-resented the Chabad-Lubavitch synagogue,part of the orthodoxJewish movement, in itsyearslong legal fightagainst the city ofHollywood to stay in itsHollywood Hills loca-tion. The synagogueoccupies two adjacenthouses in the middle ofan exclusively residen-tial block, which itmoved into in 1999.

The city, despite proclaiming that its zon-ing laws prohibited the presence of a syna-gogue in residential areas, settled withChabad for $2 million in July after U.S.District Judge Joan Lenard in Miami heldthat the city’s rules violated the FirstAmendment.

“The days when cities thought they couldjust ignore houses of worship and darethem to file suit, I think those days areover,” Zemel said.

The settlement allows the Chabad tostay in its two Hollywood Hills houses. Thesettlement, which was strongly opposed bythe synagogue’s neighbors and MayorMara Giulianti, also enables the synagogueto rebuild the homes and expand its base

In fight over synagogue,he helped city get religion

Zemel

See Marshall, Page AA13 See Zemel, Page AA13

Miami’s infamous fire-fee case

was a political debacle for the city’s popular mayor,controversial city manager

and prominent attorney Hank Adorno.

F


MARSHALL From Page AA12

Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syriafor study and research, even with privatefunding. A ruling is expected later thismonth.

In addition, the ACLU sued the PalmBeach County School Board and the stateBoard of Education in the Southern Districtof Florida on behalf of a student whorefused to stand during the Pledge ofAllegiance. U.S. DistrictJudge Kenneth Ryskampruled unconstitutional thestatute requiring studentsto stand to recite thepledge or get parental per-mission to be excused.The state has appealed.

The ACLU also won aFourth Amendment suitagainst the Tampa SportsAuthority challenging theauthority’s random pat-down searches of footballfans at the RaymondJames Stadium for TampaBay Buccaneers games. As a result, stadi-um officials are prohibited from conductingpatdown searches.

The ACLU also prevailed against PolkCounty in a suit challenging the county’sdecision to establish a “First AmendmentZone” that was available only to those whocould afford to buy $500,000 of insurance.The court ordered the county to allow theACLU and other groups to put on displayswithout insurance.

The ACLU also has litigated to challengea law requiring parental notification forminors’ abortions on behalf of several indi-viduals who were denied judicial bypassesof the requirement. The ACLU is trying toset legal standards for bypasses throughthe appellate courts.

To help cope with incursions on civil liber-ties, the ACLU of Florida has hired four newattorneys to assist Marshall. That includesone attorney to focus on gay and lesbianissues, two to handle racial and votingrights issues, and one to concentrate onreproductive rights. Previously, the organiza-tion had only one-and-a-half attorneys to han-dle legal issues in Florida.

While many lawyers in non-profit organizations receiveless pay but work shorterhours compared with law firmpractice, Marshall receivesless pay and still works longhours, frequently answering e-mails and phone calls onweekends.

During the fierce legal fightsin 2004 and 2005 in the TerrySchiavo end-of-life case — inwhich the ACLU played amajor role in writing the briefschallenging state and federallegislation to continue her arti-

ficial feeding and hydration — Marshall over-saw teams of lawyers around the country.He worked around the clock to make suredaily briefing deadlines were met.

“He’s a practical, no-nonsense person,”said Rebecca Steele, the Tampa-basedregional director of the ACLU of Florida.“He’s not interested in schmoozing or goingto bar functions. He focuses on getting thework done.”

“I think we’ve been doing quite well thisyear,” said Marshall, 55, who joined theACLU in 2000. “Whenever I hear of civil lib-erties problems going on around the coun-try, I say, ‘We have all those problems inFlorida.’ Florida is a challenging state.”

— Julie Kay

ZEMEL From Page AA12

within a four-block radius, without any spe-cial permit. In addition, Hollywood mustrewrite its zoning laws.

“I always knew that we would win,” Zemelsaid. “Their code was so blatantly unconsti-tutional.”

In 1999, the Chabad purchased twohomes on North 46th Avenue in HollywoodHills and converted them into houses ofworship. Neighbors continually complainedabout the noise and parked cars. The cityinitially granted the religious group a tempo-rary permit in 2000, followed by a perma-nent special operation permit in 2003. Butseveral months later, the city yanked thepermit, citing its zoning codes.

In 2004, the Chabad filed a discrimina-tion suit against the city and CityCommissioner Sal Oliveri, claiming thatHollywood’s zoning laws violated theReligious Land Use and InstitutionalizedPersons Act of 2000. This act requires reli-gious and nonreligious entities to be treatedequally. The following spring, the U.S.Department of Justice joined the religiousdiscrimination suit.

According to Zemel, the Hollywood HillsChabad house is still operating and is grow-ing. He said it hasn’t expanded in size, anddoesn’t know if it ever will.

Zemel said the high-profile nature of the

case helped send a message to othercities. He has received calls from religiousgroups around the country seeking help.

Zemel is also representing a rabbi inCooper City who has been unable to obtain alicense for his Chabad outreach centerbecause the city’s code prohibits houses ofworship from operating in commercial areas.

Zemel credits the Cooper City govern-ment for working to improve its codes. Lastmonth, the city changed its zoning rules toallow houses of worship to operate in officeparks and recreation districts.

But Zemel said that if the city doesn’tallow religious groups to operate in com-mercial districts, he will file suit. “They did-n’t fix all the problems and they still haven’tmade any effort to remedy past discrimina-tion,” he said.

Still, Zemel said none of his other casescompares with the Hollywood case. Zemelsaid his wife, Karen, was so “disgusted” bythe way the City Commission handled thecase that she is planning to run for a seatthat recently became vacant with the sus-pension of Commissioner KeithWasserstrom, who is under indictment oncorruption charges.

“Nothing I have seen comes close to thecircus of city hall in Hollywood,” Zemel said.

— Jordana Mishory

Randall Marshall is ‘not interested

in schmoozing or going to

bar functions. He focuses on

getting the workdone, says one

ACLU colleague.


A fter a judge declared a mistrial inthe first bank fraud case againstformer Hamilton Bank chairmanand chief executive Eduardo

Masferrer last year, federal prosecutorsPeter Outerbridge, Ben Greenberg andAndrew Levi vowed that they were notgoing to lose the second time.

Masferrer, 57, a prominent Miami busi-nessman and civic leader, was accused ofdefrauding investors and depositors out ofnearly $22 million. Prosecutors chargedMasferrer with misstating the true value ofsome bad Russian loans and swapping

those loans withLatin Americanloans withoutrevealing theswap, as the lawrequires. Theyalso charged himwith lying to bank-ing regulators inan effort to cover

up the scheme.The three assistant U.S. attorneys, led by

27-year veteran Outerbridge, spent lots oftime strategizing. For many months, theytook over the conference room at the U.S.attorney’s office in Miami. They kept reamsof documents on the shelves and spent 16-hour days camped out in the room, leavingonly for quick meals at the BaysideMarketplace.

The prosecutors started out by divvyingup the work. Levi, 40, was assigned toissues dealing with investors and analysts,as well as interpreting data from BloombergNews, the financial reporting service.Outerbridge, 52, handled the “flippers,” twoformer employees of Masferrer who pleadedguilty in exchange for testifying against theirformer boss. Greenberg, 34, oversaw out-side bankers and traders who testified forthe prosecution.

The prosecutors took the rare step of hir-ing a jury consultant, Nona Dodson of CathyE. Bennett & Associates in Lewisville,Texas. The U.S. attorney’s office doesn’toften fund this type of effort. But the threeprosecutors persuaded U.S. Attorney AlexAcosta to do so because of the importanceof the case.

They also enlisted the help of a full-timecase agent who is a trial technology spe-cialist. That enabled the team to post docu-ments on computer monitors for the jurors.Additionally, they were assisted by a finan-cial consultant and three paralegals.

The prosecutors realized that jurors maynot have grasped the complex financialdetails during the first trial. Preparing forthe second trial, they constantly ran factsand arguments past friends, relatives andother prosecutors to simplify their presenta-tion of the case. They also decided to putmore alleged victims on the stand duringtrial, to show jurors the human face of thecrime.

At the suggestion of their jury consultant,they also hired focus groups to use asmock jurors and test strategy.

Another new strategy for the prosecutionwas to file motions to exclude testimonythat the Russian loans were paid off, aboutMasferrer’s charitable contributions to thecommunity and about how Hamilton Bankofficers did an independent analysis of thesuspect loans and found them proper.

U.S. District Judge K. Michael Mooreagreed to the exclusions. Defense attorneyscited that as the main reason they lost thecase.

The prosecution’s efforts paid off. After a17-day trial and two hours of deliberations,jurors returned a guilty verdict in May.Judge Moore sentenced Masferrer to 30years in prison and ordered him to pay $31million in restitution.

— Julie KayServing Lady Justice: Federal prosecutors Ben Greenberg, Peter Outerbridge and AndrewLevi won a conviction in Eduardo Masferrer’s $22 million fraud case.

On second try, prosecutorswin conviction of a prominent banker

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

M iami criminal defense attorneyDavid O. Markus challenged aprosecutor to a game of slots towin an acquittal for his client on

charges that she ran an illegal gamblinghouse in Pompano Beach.

Gale Fontaine, a Broward County woman,operates several estab-lishments in Broward andPalm Beach counties fea-turing slot-type machinesthat pay out coupons forsmall prizes instead ofcash jackpots. She wascharged in November2005 by the office ofBroward County StateAttorney Michael Satz for

running the Tropicana arcade.State law makes it a third-degree felony

for anyone other than a Broward pari-mutuelfacility to operate a facility with slot-typemachines — unless the machines requiresome level of skill by the players. While otheroperators of such machines have pleaded tomisdemeanors and closed their arcades,Fontaine wanted to go to trial and defend herbusiness.

Markus’ defense focused on whetherFontaine’s machines could be beaten by skilledand experienced players. He had regular play-ers testify about the tactics they used to win,and even challenged the prosecutor to playhead-to-head against one of the patrons. Theprosecutor, Gregg Rossman, refused.

Slots defense strategyleft nothing to chance

FINALISTS

Markus

M iami criminal defense lawyerRoy Black helped keep PalmBeach County’s most famousalleged drug abuser out of jail.

In 2003, the National Enquirer reportedthat conservative radio host RushLimbaugh, who lives part of the year inPalm Beach, illegally purchased and pos-sessed thousands ofpowerful prescriptionpain pills worth hun-dreds of thousands ofdollars. The drugs heallegedly obtainedincluded powerfulOxyContin, sometimesknown as hillbilly heroin.

Limbaugh quickly

admitted publicly that he was addicted toprescription painkillers, announced that hewas going into a short drug rehabilitationprogram, and hired Black, of BlackSrebnick Kornspan & Stumpf, to representhim. The police and the office of PalmBeach County State Attorney BarryKrischer launched an investigation.

Krischer’s office ended up exploring pos-sible charges that Limbaugh withheld infor-mation from a medical practitioner to getthe doctor to prescribe pain pills. So-calleddoctor shopping is a third-degree felony.

But this past May, Black helped orches-trate a quiet ending to the case thatspared Limbaugh jail time.

Under the agreement with Krischer’s

Roy Black’s aggressive strategykept broadcaster Limbaugh out of jail

BlackSee Markus, Page AA15 See Black, Page AA15


MARKUS From Page AA14

But Markus believes the key to winningthe case was Fontaine’s testimony. “The realturning point,” he said, “was when she tookthe stand, because she came across like atruthful and honest person.”

More than 300 senior citizens packed thecourtroom every day during the trial andheld rallies outside the courthouse in sup-port of Fontaine.

Fontaine was acquitted by a jury after aweek-and-a-half long trial held in Augustbefore Broward Circuit Judge Michael

Kaplan. The acquittal is thought to be a firstfor anyone charged under the state anti-slots law.

“This is why I became a lawyer — forpeople like her,” he said. “She’s a great per-son who believed in her business and waswilling to go to trial.”

Markus said Satz’s office still is chargingFontaine separately for operating her otherslots facilities. “She will not back down,”Markus said.

— Carl Jones

BLACK From Page AA14

office, Limbaugh agreed to participate in apretrial diversion program designed for first-time drug offenders. He must undergo peri-odic drug testing and participate in a drugrehabilitation program for 18 months. Healso had to pay the county $30,000 tocover the cost of its investigation.

If Limbaugh successfully completes theprogram, the doctor-shopping charges willbe dropped and his record expunged.

Black went on the offensive from thestart, an approach he has become famousfor in other cases. He fought efforts byprosecutors to view Limbaugh’s medicalrecords, and appealed the issue all the wayto the Florida Supreme Court, whichdeclined to hear the case. In the end, how-ever, Krischer’s office was only able to seea limited number of files.

That significantly delayed the case andforced Krischer’s office to expend scarceresources on a case some observersthought shouldn’t be brought. Prosecutorsalso were stymied in their efforts to obtain

testimony from Limbaugh’s personal doctor.Black said his vigorous defense approach

helped his client obtain a much better dealthan he might have otherwise received.“We’re a firm believer that you’ve got to bat-tle them tooth and nail,” he said. “And manytimes things will work out much better.”

Limbaugh’s political notoriety played a role inthe case, making it harder to defend. “I wouldthink [Limbaugh’s] celebrity and his controver-sial nature caused the prosecution and policeto doggedly go after him,” Black said.

Another issue Black had to worry about— which is unique to celebrity clients —was making sure he didn’t say anything orinclude anything in motions that would harmLimbaugh’s public reputation.

At the time the deal was made in May,Krischer spokesman Michael Edmondsonsaid Limbaugh’s case ended in an outcomethat’s common for first-time offenders. Otherobservers, however, say Limbaugh got offlight because of Black’s aggressive efforts.

— Rebecca Riddick


Albert del Castillo, a partner withSquire Sanders & Dempsey inMiami, led a team of the firm’sattorneys from Miami and Tampa

as bond counsel for Citizens PropertyInsurance in the largest new-money munici-pal bond deal in state history.

The bond deal will provide Citizens with$3.05 billion. The financing will ensure thestate-chartered insurer of last resort willhave almost enough resources to meet the

needs of a once-in-a-centurystorm.

Citizens ranup a $1.7 billiondeficit afterback-to-backhyperactive hur-ricane seasonsin 2004 and2005.

“Citizens is a very important entity hereto provide windstorm insurance,” delCastillo said, noting that hundreds of thou-sands of Floridians might otherwise gowithout windstorm insurance for theirhomes.

The deal, which closed June 28, wasstructured with 22 series, each bearinginterest at variable rates to be determinedthrough a Dutch auction. The auction grad-ually lowers the auction price until it sellsat an acceptable bid. Series 1 though 10sold on a seven-day schedule, while Series11 through 22 were on a 28-day schedule.The first auction was July 10. The rollingschedule allowed the interest rate to con-tinually change.

Del Castillo called the bond deal historic,not just for its size, but also for its sub-

stance. Rather than search for financingafter a catastrophe, Citizens created afund in advance. Because the bonds are“pre-event” bonds, they are taxable.

Due to the large size of the deal, thereare four senior co-managing underwriters— Bear Sterns, Citigroup, Merrill Lynchand UBS — and 10 smaller underwritersand four bond insurers.

Del Castillo also worked to provideCitizens with a $750 million bond that wasnamed Bond Deal of the Year by BondBuyer magazine in 2004. This year’s dealwas cited by the magazine when rankingthe most active bond counsel. SquireSanders & Dempsey was ranked fourthnationally.

— Rebecca Riddick

Storm preparation: Albert del Castillohelped plot a $3 billion bond deal forCitizens Property Insurance, the insurer of last resort in hurricane-prone Florida.

Bond provided vital fundsto insurer of last resort

CORPORATE

A team of Greenberg Traurig attor-neys helped close Florida EastCoast Industries’ $270 million pur-chase of the Codina Group.

The Miami-based Greenberg team was ledby partner Ira Rosner and included partnerMichele Keusch.

The deal for theCoral Gables-based pri-vate industrial groupwas signed in Januaryand it closed in April.The Greenberg teamwas brought on boardin October 2005,toward the end of thenegotiation process, towork on due diligence and draft documents.

The Greenberg lawyers ended up working onall aspects of the deal, including land-use andenvironmental issues.

“This was a unique asset and a uniquemarriage,” Rosner said.

St. Augustine-based Florida East Coast, apublicly traded company,was founded by railroadtycoon Henry Flagler. It isthe parent company ofFlagler Development andFlorida East CoastRailway. The CodinaGroup’s founder wasArmando Codina, a power-ful Miami area developerand former business

Greenberg Traurig team helped wedCodina Group, big landowner

FINALISTS

Keusch

H olland & Knight Miami partnersRodney Bell and TammyKnight helped put together a$780 million cash asset sale of

Lakeland-based Watkins Motor Lines’ serv-ice centers, tractors and trailers toMemphis-based FedEx.

The sales agreementwas signed May 26 andclosed in September. Itincluded more than14,000 tractors andtrailers and 140 servicecenters across theUnited States andCanada. Bell saidbecause it was anasset transfer, each different item —

including all the trucks, trailers, servicecenters and equipment — had to have itstitle transferred individually.

Knight estimated that in larger deals likethis, nearly 95 percent of companies wouldnormally merge or one would purchase the

other’s stocks. Knightsaid asset transfers areunusual in deals like theWatkins-FedEx onebecause it has so manymoving parts, includingall the service centers.

“It was like 140 dif-ferent real estatedeals,” Bell said.

Bell and Knight led a

Despite numerous detours,$780 million deal got delivered

See Rosner/Keusch, Page AA17 See Bell/Knight, Page AA17

Rosner KnightBell

Albert del Castillo called the bond deal historic.

Rather than search for financing after

a catastrophe, Citizens Property Insurance created a fund in advance.


ROSNER/KEUSCH From Page AA16

partner of Gov. Jeb Bush. Rosner said the Codina Group’s desirable

assets included plenty of developable land.Keusch said the acquisition of the CodinaGroup by Florida East Coast Industries,which owns major acreage upstate, wasimportant to allow the company to grow inSouth Florida.

Florida East Coast’s stock price hasincreased since the acquisition. Companyrevenues have increased 17 percent overthe past year, and the company’s stockprice was up 38 cents in the third quarter of2006 compared with same period a yearearlier.

The deal was uniquely structured. TheGreenberg attorneys set up a holding com-pany so that Florida East Coast could pur-chase Codina Group without needing theapproval of FECI’s shareholders.

The purchase price included $168 millionin equity, $36 million in debt that wasassumed or repaid at closing, and transac-tions totaling $66 million in which sub-sidiaries of Florida East Coast boughtCodina Group land with tax-deferred saleproceeds. Ninety-two acres at BeaconCommons in Doral and the 457-acre BeaconCountyline industrial site in Hialeah wereincluded in the deal.

Work on the deal was interrupted byHurricane Wilma, which forced theGreenberg attorneys to camp out in confer-ence room at White & Case during negotia-tions. White & Case represented the CodinaGroup. Other Greenberg lawyers involvedincluded partners Lorne Cantor and GaryEpstein.

— Rebecca Riddick

BELL/KNIGHT From Page AA16

team of nearly 40 Holland attorneys whoworked on parts of the deal ranging fromtransferring assets to due diligence work.

Watkins Motor Lines was founded by BillWatkins in 1932 with a red Dodge pickuptruck. The privately held company generatedmore than $1 billion in revenue in 2005.Under the deal, Watkins, which specializes inlong-haul, less-than-truckload units, wasrebranded as FedEx National LTL. Althoughthe entire trucking business has been soldto FedEx, the company owns other business-es including real estate development andseafood restaurants.

FedEx Freight reported $3.6 billion in rev-enue in its latest fiscal year.

The attorneys declined to comment onwhy Watkins decided to sell and why itdecided to do the deal as an asset transfer.

Knight said in most large company sales,the purchasing company buys stocks.Because FedEx purchased Watkins’ assets,it was not liable as a successor company toany potential lawsuits against Watkins thatcould pop up in the future, Knight said.

In addition to transferring titles and leasesfor the trucks and properties, each Watkinscustomer had to sign a consent agreement.Every Watkins license, including those for itscomputer programs, had to be transferred

to FedEx.This transaction allowed the FedEx freight

division to expand its service operations by42 percent and its trucking operation by 28percent.

Knight, 33, said transferring all the assetsin a three-month period during the summerwas challenging. The Nova SoutheasternUniversity law school graduate said althoughthere was no exact deadline for the deal tobe finished, everyone was pushing to closeas soon as possible.

“Vendors were on vacation,” she said.“We were chasing people around who werenot available. We’d get a message thatthey’ll be out for three weeks, but we don’thave three more weeks.”

Bell, 38, who heads Holland’s securitiespractice in South Florida, said his firm hasrepresented the Watkins family before butthis transaction was his and Knight’s firsttime working with them.

Bell, a New York University law schoolgraduate, has been a partner at the firm formore than six years. Knight, also a corpo-rate and securities attorney, has been apartner for a year.

— Jordana Mishory


W hen West Palm Beach developerSyd Kitson decided in April2005 to make a bid for a pieceof the giant Babcock Ranch in

southwest Florida, he knew the odds againstsuccess were long.

The state had been trying for years topurchase the entire 91,000-acre property tocreate a wildlife conservation tract extendingfrom Lake Okeechobee to the Gulf ofMexico. It had been rebuffed repeatedly.

So Kitson turned to Akerman Senterfittshareholders Teddy D. Klinghoffer andAndrew M. Smulian, chairman of the real

estate practicegroup, for assis-tance in attempt-ing a newapproach. Theresult was one ofthe biggestFlorida real estatedeals in memory.

“We knew thatone of the main obstacles to a state pur-chase had always been the fact that thestate only wanted to buy the land,”Klinghoffer said. “But for tax reasons, theBabcock family members were only willingto sell the stock in the parent company.”

So the Akerman lawyers first put togethera joint venture combining Kitson & Partnerswith Morgan Stanley Real Estate Fund andEvergreen Partners as key providers of equi-ty financing.

Backed with such financial firepower,Kitson was able to make an offer to the fam-ily, which was represented by White & Case,for the Babcock Co. and its primary asset,the Babcock Ranch. The vast acreageincludes cypress swamp, native grassland,flatwoods and land used for agriculturaloperations.

“That made the family happy,” Klinghoffersaid. “Kitson then was able to sell the stateand Lee County the land they wanted for thewildlife corridor.”

Once the problem of structuring the dealwas solved, negotiating a price did notprove too difficult. Although the 42 Babcockfamily shareholders did not reveal it publicly,the transaction was valued at $500 million.The Kitson joint venture then recouped mostof its investment, getting $310 million fromthe state and $40 million from Lee Countyfor the sale of about 74,000 acres for thewildlife corridor.

Klinghoffer said it was one of the mostcomplicated deals he has ever done. “I had15 or 20 people in my firm working on it.There was a lot of tax work, a lot of corpo-rate stuff, joint venture work, environmentaldue diligence. We even had employmentlawyers doing some work on it, because theranch had several ongoing businesses onit.”

It was also a lengthy process, Klinghoffersaid, “because there were so many contin-gencies that had to be thought through.What happens if the state didn’t come upwith the money, for example?”

The deadline had to be extended 10times. Two days before the July 31 closing,the attorneys discovered that the mapsbeing used by the buyers and the state didnot match. There was a 17-acre discrepancyin the boundaries of the parcels. A surveyorhad to be dispatched in the middle of thenight to ascertain the correct property lines.

Kitson now will turn 17,000 acres of theproperty into a new town with 18,000 resi-dences, offices, schools and 150,000square feet of space for government andcivic uses.

It’s not every day that a law firm gets theopportunity to play midwife at the birth of abrand-new city. Klinghoffer said he’s equallypleased that the deal accomplished a con-servation goal that had eluded state officialsfor years: establishing the wildlife corridor.

— Dan CordtzGoing green: Andrew M. Smulian, left, and Teddy D. Klinghoffer worked the sale of a91,000-acre property that includes cypress swamp, native grassland, flatwoods and landused for agricultural operations.

Land deal to create new city, wildlife conservation tract

REAL ESTATE

M iami attorney Oscar Rivera hadto juggle closings on the sales of13 parcels held by six owners sothey all would close simultane-

ously. That was the unusual way the AltosPlaza project in Little Havana was pitched.

“It was a crazy deal,” said Rivera, a part-ner at Siegfried RiveraLerner De La Torre &Sobel, which concen-trates on constructionlaw.

The Altos Plaza project,planned for three blocksbetween Southwest Firstand Third streets, wouldbe made up of two 24-story towers. Expected

tenants include a Publix Sabor, a Hispanic-ori-ented cousin to the Florida grocery chain,40,000 square feet of office space, and 335residential units.

Rivera represented Miami-based BDevelopments, a company that partneredwith Tampa-based Brandon Partners for theproject. Brandon put the properties undercontract, and B Developments worked with aNew York-based lender that Rivera declinedto identify.

When B Developments told Rivera of theplan to close on the 13 parcels simultaneous-ly, he said he was shocked at its complexity.“I looked at my client and said ‘My God, thisis a hornet’s nest,’ ” Rivera said. “But wetightened our belts and said, ‘Let’s do it.’ ”

He worked 13-piece puzzle,made all the players happy

FINALISTS

Rivera

N eil S. Rollnick, partner andchair of the real estate practicegroup with Adorno & Yoss inCoral Gables, negotiated the

$86 million purchase of Emerald Dunes, a486-unit apartment complex in West PalmBeach.

Rollnick represented buyer AllenGreenwald, the principalbehind Villas at EmeraldDunes LLC.

Greenwald expressedhis interest to Rollnickin the property at 6442Emerald Dunes Drive inthe summer of 2004while the property wasunder construction.

Greenwald was interested in converting itinto condominiums.

From there, Rollnick had wide latitude tonegotiate with Texas-based seller FairfieldEmerald Dunes L.P.

Negotiations proved difficult as the sell-ing investment partners became nervousabout the purchase price and put the prop-erty on the market through a broker.

“This matter took a tremendous amountof diligence,” Rollnick said.

He maintained talks with the seller, theseller’s attorney and the broker.

“Through that process, I negotiated apurchase and sale that was acceptable tothe broker, to the seller, to the seller’smoneyed partner and to my client,”

Apartment sale required patience and ability to multitask

RollnickSee Rivera, Page AA19 See Rollnick, Page AA19

RIVERA From Page AA18

Some of the closings went easily, but oth-ers took extra pressure from brokers,Rivera said. But the true crisis eruptedwhen one seller, an insolvent liquor store,asked a federal judge to hold onto the prop-erty so it could keep its substantial liquorinventory. The motion by Only Liquors Inc.might have sunk the whole project.

With the bankruptcy judge set to rule onwhether the liquor store could stay, Riverascrambled for a contingency plan. “Up untilthe last minute, we were trying to come upwith alternative ideas,” he said. Thoseincluded working with the lender to extendthe closing dates, and rearrange otherterms of the financing deal.

In the end however, Rivera negotiated

with the seller’s attorney to close on theproperty by the closing date, and let theowner take control of the remaining invento-ry.

The challenges were exacerbated by thefact that the parties were spread throughoutFlorida and New York. “It just took a lot oflogistical coordination to put things togeth-er,” he said.

Rivera said the project called for a lot oflate nights, but all the parties ultimatelywere satisfied. “Real estate lawyers have adifferent mentality than litigators,” he said.“We all need to work together to make surethat at the end of the day, everybody’shappy.”

— Carl Jones

ROLLNICK From Page AA18

Rollnick said.He also introduced Greenwald to another

client, Mellon United National Bank, whichwent on to finance the full purchase price.

Emerald Dunes was still under construc-tion when it changed hands in two phases.A $58 million segment closed in February,

and the second phase closed in September.“The area in which I was effective more

than anything else — which is what I do formy clients — is I got the deal,” Rollnicksaid.



W hen the Florida Department ofTransportation wanted to annexBridgestone Aircraft Tires Inc.’sMiami facility to expand two

state roads, the company wasn’t going togive up its 3.3- acre property without afight.

The tire manufacturing facility needed toestablish a factory in anew location before itlost its old one. And thatnew facility needed cer-tification from theFederal AviationAdministration.

So the company hiredattorney Mark Tobin, apartner at BrighamMoore in Coral Gables,

which focuses on representing propertyowners in eminent domain cases.

Tobin helped settle the case for $10.5million — nearly 250 percent of what FDOTinitially offered. In addition, this settlementenabled Bridgestone to stay in its currentlocation near Miami International Airportuntil at least June 2007, as it prepares tomove to Mayodan, N.C.

“It is extraordinarily challenging, becausewe didn’t want the patient to die on thetable,” Tobin said of the case. “We werevery careful and committed to ensuring thetransition would be smooth so[Bridgestone] would have no interruption inits business.”

Bridgestone remanufactures used tiresfor commercial airlines and the military.

In September 2005, FDOT filed its tak-ings case against Bridgestone in Miami-

Dade Circuit Court. The department offeredBridgestone $3.8 million for the facility,which has more than 46,000 square feet ofenclosed space situated on the 3.3-acresite.

Tobin said he first tried to limit FDOT’sacquisition to a smaller portion of the prop-erty, which he believed was all the govern-ment needed for its road improvement.

FDOT wanted to use the land for its inter-change improvement project at StateRoads 826 and 836.

In June, Bridgestone agreed to acceptFDOT’s offer of $10.5 million. In addition,the government is paying $1.4 million inattorney fees and to help pay forBridgestone’s relocation. Judge MariaEspinosa Dennis entered the final judgmenton Oct. 6.

According to Tobin, Bridgestone will payFDOT a reduced rent as its transitions intoits new facility.

Tobin, a 43-year-old University of Miamilaw school graduate, said one of the mostchallenging parts of the deal was findingreliable and current market data to demon-strate the facility’s high value.

Tobin has been with Brigham Moore inCoral Gables for his entire legal career, join-ing the firm in 1987. He sees his eminentdomain work as a personal cause.

“There are very few issues as fundamen-tal to our freedom as being able to ownproperty,” Tobin said. “When oppressiveregimes fall, one of the first things you hearabout is giving citizens the right to own pri-vate property. [That freedom] is preciousand worth protecting.”

— Jordana Mishory

A passion for property rights,a $10.5M check for tire maker

Tobin

FINALISTS


C oral Gables attorneys ErvinGonzalez and Deborah J.Gander won the largest federaltort claims verdict ever awarded

in the United States on behalf of a child whosuffered a catastrophic brain injury beforedelivery in a Jacksonville naval hospital.

The $61 million verdict came inNovember 2005, after a three-week benchtrial before U.S. District Judge Jose A.Gonzalez Jr. in Fort Lauderdale. At trial, thetwo plaintiff attorneys from Colson HicksEidson in Coral Gables showed how negli-gence at the Navy Hospital of Jacksonville

led to the injurysuffered by KevinBravo Rodriguez.

The verdict hassince beenreduced to almost$41 million — stilla record for a fed-eral tort claimscase. Judge

Gonzalez reduced by $10 million each thepain and suffering awards for Kevin’s par-ents. Federal sovereign immunity law doesnot limit the amount collectable by the plain-tiff. The government has appealed the ver-dict.

The Federal Tort Claims Act requires allcases against the U.S. government bedecided by a judge, not a jury. Shortly afterthe trial, Kevin’s father, Oscar Rodriguez, aresident of Miami-Dade County, shipped offto Iraq for naval duty.

The mother reported to the hospital foran induced delivery early in the morning onJune 10, 2003. The fetus was healthy butlate.

Her water broke at 4 p.m. that day andthere were signs of fetal distress. But thedoctors and hospital staff took no immedi-ate steps to deliver the baby.

The fetal heart rate decelerated throughthe night. By the next morning, the heartrate had crashed.

Doctors delivered the baby byCaesarean section, more than 29 hoursafter the mother had arrived at the hospi-tal. Kevin was blue, had no heart rate andwas not breathing. After 15 minutes ofCPR and three epinephrine injections, hewas resuscitated. But he had been withoutoxygen for too long, and suffered a cata-strophic brain injury.

Last month, Kevin developed pneumoniaand died at age 3.

Gonzalez said he had concerns abouttrying the case before a judge without ajury but that his trial team handled the casethe same as if it had been a jury trial. Hebrought in experts and recreated a day-in-the-life of Kevin.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., launched aninvestigation of the problem-prone hospitalafter the trial concluded because of infor-mation that came to light in this case.

— Rebecca Riddick

Record result: Ervin Gonzalez and DeborahJ. Gander earned a $61 million award,which has since been reduced to $41 million.

Hospital negligence caseyields record award

CIVIL LITIGATION

I n a stunning reversal of fortune,Jonathan Goodman, a partner atAkerman Senterfitt in Miami, and his trialteam got a $78 million federal jury ver-

dict overturned by the trial judge.The verdict originally was awarded last

December to the plaintiff, AlphaMed, a Largo-based pharmaceuticalcompany that had sued alarger company, ArrivaPharmaceuticals inCalifornia, for theft oftrade secrets. Goodmanrepresented Arriva.

The jury verdict wasthe biggest loss ofGoodman’s 23-year legalcareer. So when U.S.

District Judge Cecilia M. Altonaga, in anunusual move in June, granted Arriva’s post-verdict motion for judgment as a matter oflaw and overturned the jury verdict,Goodman — who was on a skiing vacationwhen he received the news — said he feltexhilarated and vindicated.

AlphaMed attorney James McDonald, ofSquire Sanders & Dempsey in Miami, hasappealed Judge Altonaga’s ruling.

The case was one of several filed aroundthe country after two founders of a drugcompany had a bitter split. John Lezdey, achemist, and Dr. Alan Wachter, a physician,were involved in the invention of a drugcalled Alpha 1-antitrypsin, which they claimcan be used to treat maladies ranging from

A big defeat is transformedinto an exhilarating victory

FINALISTS

Goodman

A lan T. Dimond, a shareholder atGreenberg Traurig in Miami, suc-cessfully represented the develop-er of swank Fisher Island in litiga-

tion that centered on whether the develop-er had a contractual obligation to improvethe island’s transportation system andparking.

Fisher Island is anexclusive residentialcommunity south ofSouth Beach and closeto the Port of Miami.The island is home tosome of the wealthiestresidents in SouthFlorida. Entertainer MelBrooks, lawyer Roy

Black and BCBG designer Max Azria allown property on the island. Former resi-dents include talk show queen OprahWinfrey and tennis great Boris Becker.

Eight years ago, the now-defunct MutualBenefit Life Insurance Co. in New Jersey,which owned the island at the time, decid-ed to sell its interest in the island. Thattouched off protracted litigation betweenMutual Benefit, the residents of the islandand developer Fisher Island Holdings LLC.

Under an agreement with Miami-DadeCounty, the developer is prohibited frombuilding a bridge or a causeway to FisherIsland. Thus, the island is accessible onlyby ferry.

The residents of Fisher Island sued the

Fisher Island developer avoids costly upgrades

DimondSee Goodman, Page AA21 See Dimond, Page AA21

Kevin Bravo Rodriguez suffered a catastrophic

brain injury before deliveryin a Jacksonville naval hospital.

The child died last month and his father has been

shipped off to Iraq.


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GOODMAN From Page AA20

ear infections to emphysema. The drug isnot yet on the market.

Lezdey wound up at AlphaMed andWachter at Arriva. Both men continued theirrace toward clinical trials and FDA approval,with great animosity between them. The twosides traded allegations of private investiga-tors sifting through trash, gunfire directed atdoctors’ offices, pepper spray attacks anddeath threats against clients.

In 2003, AlphaMed sued Arriva in Miami,alleging misappropriation of trade secrets,tortious interference with a business rela-tionship and unfair competition. Arriva wasrepresented by Goodman and Akermanlawyers Carolina Maharbiz, Sam Heywoodand Julie Nevins.

Goodman knew he would have a hardtime going into trial, since his clientacknowledged sifting through AlphaMed’strash and contacting the FBI. A retired FBIinvestigator, George Spinelli, became a co-defendant in the case, accused of pullingtrade secrets from the trash.

“We were dealing with a very provocativeset of facts that we knew could make a jury

upset, even though we knew we were justi-fied,” Goodman said.

Goodman drafted much of the 40-pagemotion for judgment and conducted the two-and-a-half hour oral argument. WhenGoodman presented the motion pretrial, asis typical, Judge Altonaga denied it, but leftthe door open for a post-trial motion. WhenGoodman presented the same motion post-trial, she agreed with many of Goodman’sarguments and ruled in his favor.

In her lengthy ruling, she cited Florida’s“new business rule” statute, which statesthat while existing, profitable companies cansue for damages when their operations areinterrupted, start-up companies with notrack record of profits have a higher burdento overcome. She also wrote that “only aminiscule percentage of drugs in develop-ment ever reaches the commercial market.”

It’s unusual for a judge to override a juryverdict, and AlphaMed has appealedAltonaga’s ruling. The two sides are sched-uled for mandatory mediation on the matterthis month.

— Julie Kay

DIMOND From Page AA20

developer in 1998 in Miami-Dade CircuitCourt, alleging that under the agreementwith the county the developer was obligatedto build a number of facilities to improve theisland’s transportation system. The resi-dents were represented by David Freedmanof Burlington Schwiep Kaplan & Blonsky inMiami.

“This is what you call complex civil litiga-tion — a cliché that’s overused,” Dimondsaid. “It was complicated in a sense that itinvolved a lot of participants, lengthy docu-ments and expert opinion.”

Both sides had to present their interpreta-tion of contract language and presentexperts to testify about the necessity of theimprovements to the transportation system.

The facilities the residents argued thedeveloper was obliged to build included off-island parking facilities for Fisher Islandemployees, permanent barge facilities and

permanent backup facilities for moving ves-sels to and from the island. The facilitieswould have cost the developer more than$30 million.

A trial was held in June before SeniorJudge Herbert Stettin. Under an agreementbetween the parties, the trial was held atthe Miami offices of Greenberg Traurig.Because this was a trial and not an arbitra-tion, the parties were able to appealHerbert’s decision.

After listening to experts from both sideson the technical necessities of transporta-tion systems during a weeklong trial, JudgeStettin ruled in the developer’s favor. Thatmeans Dimond’s client won’t have to pro-vide the transportation and parkingenhancements. An appeal is pending.


I t took almost two years to get a deci-sion allowing a breach of contract claimfiled by Leoncio de la Pena againstone of the wealthiest Salvadoran fami-

lies to be heard in the United States.The hard worked paid off. Just three months after de la Pena

cleared a key jurisdiction-al hurdle, a Miami-DadeCircuit Court judgeawarded $30 million inSeptember to his client,an international invest-ment company.

Northern Ireland-basedValat InternationalHoldings sued the Safiefamily and its telecommu-

nications and textile businesses inSeptember 2004 for failing to repay nearly$30 million in loans and interest owed to the

now-defunct Hamilton Bank in Miami. Valat picked up the loans when the

Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. auctionedoff the assets of the seized bank. The suitclaimed the Safies personally guaranteedpayment but didn’t make any after Valatassumed the loans.

The Safies claimed the case belonged intheir homeland of El Salvador because that’swhere they lived when they received the loanfrom Hamilton.

But de la Pena of de la Pena Group inMiami said the loan documents specifiedFlorida law would be applied to any dis-putes.

Judge Mindy Glazer denied the defen-dant’s motion to dismiss in June. She fol-lowed by granting summary judgment infavor of Valat and ordered the defendants torepay their loans.

“These guys knew that once we prevailedon jurisdiction, it would be a rolling locomo-tive going downhill against them,” de la Penasaid. “That’s why they put the bulk of theirfight” on jurisdiction.

The breach of contract case was filedagainst Oscar Antonio Safie, his son, wifeand daughter-in-law. Other named defen-

dants included their telecom company ElSalvador Networks and two textile firms,Rayones de El Salvador and Hilanderias deExportacion.

The defendants filed a notice to appeal inOctober.

De la Pena said the fight over attorneyfees is about to begin. He said he and histeam are seeking fees in excess of $8 mil-lion.

He also has initiated litigation in ElSalvador to domesticate the judgment. Hesaid other upcoming litigation includes afraud suit against the defendants allegingthey have transferred assets to other enti-ties under their control.

As of now, Valat has identified and intendsto seize $1.5 million in U.S. assets, de laPena said.

— Jordana Mishory

Critical jurisdictional victory results in $30 million award

FINALIST

De la Pena

Valat International Holdingssued the Safie family and its

telecommunications and textile businesses for failingto repay nearly $30 million in loans and interest owed

to the now-defunct Hamilton Bank in Miami.


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