News & Events

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit affirmed a $3.5 million jury verdict against Miami-Dade County, as well as a declaration that a county ordinance regulating stevedores was unconstitutional in Florida Transportation Service, Inc. v. Miami-Dade County.

Jeffrey Crockett, who tried the case and handled the appeal, was quoted by the Daily Business Review as stating that the 83 page opinion "demonstrates without question that Judge Jordan correctly analyzed the legal issues and that the county's conduct in protecting existing stevedores from outside competition violated the U.S. Constitution."

A copy of the Eleventh Circuit's opinion can be read here.  

Benjamin Brodsky has been named a partner with Coffey Burlington effective January 1, 2013. 

Ben has been with the firm since 2009.  While at the firm he has tried cases to judgment in both federal and state court, and has argued appeals to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit and the Third District Court of Appeal. 

Coffey Burlington congratulates Ben on this great achievement.

Partner Kendall Coffey was quoted in an AP News story, picked up by many news outlets, on a story regarding the federal criminal charges filed against an executive in the West Virginia Mine Blast investigation.  The article reads:

Corporations like Massey, since bought out by Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources, are typically structured to shield their leaders from liability, the experts say. To reach the top, investigators would most likely need hard evidence to match witnesses' words.

Either that, says former U.S. Attorney Kendall Coffey of Miami, or they'll need multiple witnesses.

"If the star witness has a supporting cast," he said, "it can be a compelling basis for conviction."

 
The full article can be found here.

Attorney Benjamin Brodsky has published an article on Florida's statutory proceedings supplementary in the December 2012 issue of the Florida Bar Journal. To read the article, Caught in the Web of Florida's Statutory Proceedings Supplementary: Procedural and Constitutional Problems Facing Impleaded Third Parties, click here. 

The firm congratulates Ben on this thorough and insightful article. 

The firm congratulates Partner Dan Blonsky, who joined the firm 20 years ago this week!

Coffey Burlington is proud to have a lawyer and person of Dan's caliber with us for these past 20 years. Dan joined Coffey Burlington (then named Coffey, Aragon, Martin & Burlington, PA) in 1992, and has been a shareholder with the firm since 1999.

Dan's contributions to the firm, and to his clients, over the past 20 years have been incomparable. 

Congrats Dan. 

On October 18th Bob Burlington, the firm's Managing Partner, was honored by the University of Miami School of Law at its 3rd Annual Alumni Association Homecoming Golf Tournament at the Melreese Country Club. Mr. Burlington, who graduated from the law school in 1978, spearheaded the effort to raise funds to establish the Paul T. Dee Memorial Award in memory of Paul T. Dee, former Director of Hurricane Athletics and adjunct professor at the School of Law. 

The event was a great success and was well-attended by many distinguished federal and state court judges, attorneys, and influential members of the community. The firm was proud to be the title sponsor of the event.

Congratulations to Mr. Burlington for this great honor.

Attorney David Freedman crafted a creative solution to a highly disputed commercial foreclosure matter on behalf of the firm's client, a venture capital firm. After the case had been stalled for almost two years by the borrower, the firm was retained to take over representation of the plaintiff and within eight months obtained a final judgment in foreclosure, coupled with a long-term lease back to the prior owner.

Attorney David Freedman successfully resolved a complex land use matter on behalf of client, a national real estate trust, involving complex land use documents, cross easements and an unconstitutional county ordinance which allowed the adjacent land owner to impair the firm's client's property rights, in secret, without giving them an opportunity to be heard.  After filing suit against the neighboring landowner and the County, Mr. Freedman was able to re-capture 95% of the disputed property rights and substantial monetary compensation for the client.

After a Miami-Dade County trial court entered an order stripping in excess of 100 acres of prime developable land (zoned for over 500 residential units), the firm was retained to file an appeal.  Attorney David Freedman successfully obtained a ruling from the Third District Court of Appeals which restored the development rights to the property. The Opinion in this case, 19650 NE 18th Ave & Union Labor v. Presidential Estates, can be read here.

Best Lawyers®, the oldest and one of the most respected peer review guides to legal excellence in the legal profession, has named Albert Caruana to its 2013 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, in the Family Law category. The list is compiled based on exhaustive national surveys of over 4 million evaluations of lawyers by their professional peers.

This is Albert's 15th consecutive year being named one of the Best Lawyers in America.  Congratulations to Albert!

We are proud to announce that ten attorneys from our firm have been recognized in Florida Trend's 2012 Florida Legal Elite! Congratulations to Daniel Blonsky, Ben Brodsky, Bob Burlington, Kendall Coffey, Jeff Crockett, Gabe Groisman, Kevin Kaplan, Paul Schwiep, Fernando Tamayo, and David Zack.

"This ninth annual edition of Florida Legal Elite recognizes a prestigious list of 1,348 attorneys selected by their colleagues... The resulting lists represent approximately 2% of the more than 67,000 active Florida Bar members who practice in Florida."

After staying the course through three amendments and Plaintiff’s Motion for Summary Judgment, Susan Raffanello obtained a final summary judgment in favor of her client, Royale Florida Enterprises, Inc., in an action seeking $7.5 million for breach of contract. After four years of litigation, the Court entered judgment in favor of Royale, agreeing that no contract had been formed.

Attorneys Daniel Blonsky and Alice Meyer won a big victory when the Third District Court of Appeals of the State of Florida reversed a circuit court's summary judgment which had found that an indemnification agreement entered into by the firm’s client when it sold its downtown property to The Fallstaff Group, protected the firm’s client, MPA Brickell Key, LLC, from a dispute that arose when a former neighbor sued MPA over property tax payments.  Dan Blonsky succesfully argued the case in front of the Third DCA.

The win was featured on the cover of the Miami Daily Business Review.

Today, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court order denying a Motion to Dismiss on qualified immunity grounds in Alsobrook v. Medina, Case No. 11-11244.  Attorney Ben Brodsky handled the appeal on behalf of the pro se plaintiff/appellee.  Mr. Brodsky volunteered his time to represent the client at the request of the court.

This case is representative of our firm's commitment to legal public service and to our community.

We are proud to announce that eleven attorneys from our firm have been named as "Top Attorneys in Florida" in the 2012 edition of Super Lawyers magazine!  Congratulations to Daniel Blonsky, Ben Brodsky, Bob Burlington, Albert Caruana, Kendall Coffey , Jeff Crockett, David Freedman, Gabe Groisman, Kevin Kaplan, Alice Meyer, and Paul Schwiep.

"Super Lawyers selects attorneys using a rigorous, multiphase rating process. Peer nominations and evaluations are combined with third party research. Each candidate is evaluated on 12 indicators of peer recognition and professional achievement. Selections are made on an annual, state-by-state basis. The objective is to create a credible, comprehensive and diverse listing of outstanding attorneys that can be used as a resource for attorneys and consumers searching for legal counsel."

Kendall Coffey was named Attorney of the Month and featured on the cover of the Greater Miami edition of Attorney at Law Magazine. The magazine also featured a wonderful article about Mr. Coffey's illustrious career.

Click here to view the publication.

Kendall Coffey interivewed by theGrio's Joy-Ann Reid about the Trayvon Martin case from Kendall Coffey on Vimeo.

Jeff Crockett and Fernanado Tamayo obtained an award of $428,035 for the firm's cilent, a mortgage servicing company, in a federal jury trial, upon the jury's finding that the defendant had breached the party's contract by overcharging the plaintiff in that amount.  The case was a breach of contract claim against one of the country's largest financial institutions. Mr. Crockett and Mr. Tamayo tried the case over five days before the Honorable Jose Martinez of the Southern Distrcit of Florida.

David Freedman successfully obtained a foreclosure order in the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court for the benefit of bondholders of over $70 million in bonds, which had been issued by a unit of local government.  The foreclosure was obtained despite the property owner's attempt to circumvent the foreclosure by filing a separate lawsuit seeking an injunction of the foreclosure, arguing that the persons holding office for the governmental unit that had originally issued the bonds were not properly elected.

 Coffey Burlington is proud to have been recognized as one of Florida's Top Ranked Law Firms in 2012 by Martindale-Hubbell.

Read more

Defending an $8 million breach of contract action on behalf of a Miami business man, attorneys Paul Schwiep and Gabriel Groisman obtained a Dismissal with Prejudice in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

As written in Florida Today:

Already facing overloaded dockets of criminal and civil cases, Florida’s court system is getting hit by a deluge of foreclosures that could tie up the state’s legal system for years to come, according to nationally prominent lawyer.

Read more

On February 27, 2012, attorney Kim Freedman joined Coffey Burlington as an Associate.  Ms. Freedman recently finished a federal clerkship with The Honorable Judge Paul Huck, United States District Court, Southern District of Florida.  Prior to her clerkship, Kim was an associate at the law firm of Jorden Burt.

On February 23, 2012, Coffey Burlington proudly participated and attended the Miami Jewish Legal Society’s Annual Judicial Reception as a Gold Sponsor.  The Firm is proud to participate in these community events.  The Reception was well-attended by hundreds of attorneys, and approximately 50 members of the bench.

On February 7, 2012, Benjamin Brodsky, who serves as a member of the Board of Directors and Chair of the Law Clerks/Young Lawyer Division of the Federal Bar Association’s South Florida Chapter, hosted a luncheon featuring the Honorable Ursula Ungaro.  Judge Ungaro spoke about the volunteer Legal Up Program, which she leads.   Abigail Parent, a former law clerk for Judge Ungaro, introduced the Judge to the crowd of attorneys, law clerks and federal judges.