Leesfield & Partners

A Miami-Dade jury returned a $95 million verdict, among the largest motor-vehicle awards in the history of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, for the family of a young woman killed and her brother catastrophically injured when a drunk driver traveled the wrong way on I-95 in December 2015 after being overserved at a Miami bar.

A Seminole County jury awarded $24.1 million, the largest verdict in county history at the time, after an obstetrician's prolonged vacuum extraction and use of fundal pressure caused a uterine rupture that deprived a newborn girl of oxygen and left her with severe cerebral palsy.

Justin Shapiro of Leesfield and Partners secured a $16 million settlement for a 67-year-old woman who was beaten and sexually assaulted in the open hallway of a northwest Miami-Dade Rodeway Inn while hotel employees and the property's security guard stood by and did nothing.

A Broward County jury awarded $15.4 million to Dwight Grant, a 22-year-old backseat passenger who suffered skull fractures and permanent frontal-lobe brain damage when a drunk driver with a BAC of .21 rear-ended the stopped car at a drawbridge in Pompano Beach.

Justin Shapiro of Leesfield and Partners secured a $6 million policy-limits settlement for a client who suffered multiple skull fractures and brain hemorrhages after being struck in a crosswalk, completing the resolution during the Florida COVID-19 shutdown of 2020.

A family sued the United States after their son was born quadriplegic, deaf and blind at an Air Force hospital, and the government agreed to a structured settlement of up to $1,999,900. When the child died two days after final approval and the government tried to back out, a federal judge enforced the agreement. The court found the deal binding from the date of approval and rejected every ground the government raised.

Thomas Scolaro and Justin Shapiro of Leesfield Scolaro secured a $1.575 million settlement for a Broward electrician who fell eight feet from an unsecured marina ladder while boarding an 83-foot yacht at River Bend Marina in Fort Lauderdale.

Justin Shapiro of Leesfield and Partners negotiated a $1.25 million presuit settlement for the family of an 84-year-old man fatally struck by a hit-and-run driver in Orlando, despite the vehicle owner and the driver both invoking the Fifth Amendment and refusing to cooperate with their insurer.

Fernando J. Lopez was riding his motorcycle when a truck driven by an H & H Electric employee struck him from behind. A jury returned a verdict that became a final judgment of $435,968.16 against the company and its driver. Florida's Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in October 2007 after the defense challenged the handling of surveillance video and the jury instructions.