March 28, 2024

TopRank Florida

TopRank Florida - Top 200 Private Companies

| 6/1/2010

Law Firms

Stephen Zack
Stephen Zack is a partner at Boies, Schiller & Flexner in Miami. [Photo: Boies, Schiller & Flexner]

Cesar L. Alvarez
Cesar L. Alvarez, Greenberg Traurig
Over 37 years at Greenberg Traurig (Private No. 16), including the last 14 as CEO, Cesar L. Alvarez grew the global firm to 1,775 attorneys, including 400 in Florida. Alvarez has also been a leading figure in south Florida, serving as a trustee and member of multiple groups and boards. This year, Alvarez stepped down as CEO — replaced by New York-based Richard A. Rosenbaum —?but he remains executive chairman.

» Although Orlando-based Akerman Senterfitt didn’t return the required paperwork to be included in the Trend 350, the firm topped our TopRank list of largest law firms last year, with 412 Florida-based attorneys. Led by CEO Andrew M. Smulian, Akerman Senterfitt has a history of insider influence, particularly in central Florida: It was instrumental, for example, in the routing of Interstate 4 through Orlando, and the firm helped procure the initial land purchase for Disney World.

» Since the early days when Chesterfield Smith ran the firm, Holland & Knight (Private No. 41) has wielded influence throughout the state. From his office overlooking downtown Tampa, former Gov. Bob Martinez, now a Holland & Knight senior policy adviser, coaches clients on how to navigate their way through state politics.

» Other statewide firms with significant influence include Carlton Fields (Private No. 118), Shutts & Bowen (Private No. 154), GrayRobinson (Private No. 159), Adorno & Yoss (Private No. 188), and Fowler White Boggs, Foley & Lardner, Broad and Cassel and Gunster (all not ranked).

» Florida-based attorneys taking leadership positions nationally include Stephen N. Zack, a partner at Miami’s Boies, Schiller & Flexner (not ranked). Zack begins his yearlong term as president of the American Bar Association in August. Also, Tampa’s Nathaniel L. Doliner of Carlton Fields (Private No. 118) will remain chairman of the ABA’s business law section through July, and Charles H. Egerton of Orlando’s Dean Mead (not ranked) becomes chairman of the ABA’s tax section in August. Jesse H. Diner of Atkinson Diner Stone Mankuta & Ploucha (not ranked) in Fort Lauderdale will be handing over the presidency of the Florida Bar this month to Mayanne Downs of King, Blackwell, Downs & Zehnder (not ranked) in Orlando. — Art Levy


Insurance

John Auer
John Auer is taking American Strategic national. The insurer has about 500,000 policies. [Photo: Mark Wemple]

Florida’s economy hangs on what happens in the home insurance market. Florida domestics — no-name, young, Florida-based companies — have more than doubled their market share in recent years to nearly half the market. “With that market share comes the influence. If we didn’t have the Florida domestics, we wouldn’t have anything,” says Sean Shaw, the state insurance consumer advocate. Key domestics from our list include, Universal Insurance Holdings (Public No. 77). It started in the Florida market in 1997 by taking out policies from the predecessor of state-run and taxpayer-subsidized Citizens Property Insurance. It’s now a top-five homeowners insurance company in Florida and has branched out to Georgia, the Carolinas and Hawaii. As of Dec. 31, it had 541,000 policies in force, all but 4,100 of them in Florida. From our private list, there’s also American Strategic Insurance (Private No. 50), which aims to be the class of the domestics. Unlike many of its peers, it avoided the Citizens “takeout” business in favor of what’s called the voluntary market — customers’ whose business wasn’t bought out of Citizens. Also unusually, it has actual employees in a niche where many outsource nearly everything. Indeed, American Strategic, under CEO John Auer, made our “Best Companies to Work For” list last year. It has half a million policies in force and is going national.

» FPIC Insurance Group (Public No. 82) is the largest writer of med mal coverage in Florida and fourth-largest in Texas, two of the 13 states it’s active in. Forbes includes it on its list of the “100 Most Trustworthy Companies” judged by transparent and conservative accounting and prudent management.

» J. Hyatt Brown, 72, helped lead Florida as Speaker of the state House and, since leaving the Legislature in 1980, has led Daytona Beach-based insurance brokerage Brown & Brown Insurance (Public No. 47) into becoming the largest in Florida, sixth-largest nationally. He’s thoroughly connected, serving on the boards of International Speedway Corp. and the Florida Council of 100. His son, J. Powell Brown, 42, took over as CEO last year. — Mike Vogel

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Central Floirda chocolate shops are left with a bitter taste as cocoa prices hit an all-time high earlier this week.

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