Shutts & Bowen LLP has just added two high-profile partners in its West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale offices, continuing an ambitious expansion in both offices over the last year. Prominent business litigator John Mariani has joined the West Palm Beach office, adding strength to the office’s formidable commercial litigation practice. Sandra Krumbein, who has a statewide real estate practice, has joined the firm’s Fort Lauderdale office.
The addition of these high-profile partners rounds out a year in which Shutts’ West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale offices each grew by nearly a third, accompanied by a dramatic strengthening of the firm’s commercial litigation, health care and real estate practices.
Mariani is the second business litigator with a national practice and the fifth prominent partner to join the West Palm Beach office in the last month, bringing the total number of lawyers there to 22. He joins partner Eric Christu, who recently announced he was joining the firm, and a litigation team that includes partners Al La Sorte, well known in real estate litigation; Arnold Berman, Shutts’ firmwide managing partner for more than a decade and Chair of the West Palm Beach office’s Litigation Group; Joseph McSorley, a 24-year veteran of Shutts and former lead federal prosecutor, and Hank Jackson, who has a statewide practice focusing on non-competition restrictions, trade secrets and business torts. Jackson also recently joined the firm.
“The welcome additions of John Mariani and Eric Christu should cement the West Palm Beach office’s reputation as one of the strongest business litigation practices in the area,” said partner Bowman Brown, Chairman of Shutts & Bowen’s Executive Committee. “We expect Sandra Krumbein’s statewide practice will flourish with her access to our offices around the state.”
Mariani practices in the areas of complex commercial litigation, class actions and appeals, antitrust and trade regulation, product liability defense, securities litigation, complicated shareholder and partnership disputes, trademark and patent litigation, and civil investigations.
Krumbein, who has joined Shutts’ Real Estate Practice Group, is the seventh lateral hire in the Fort Lauderdale office in the last year, bringing the total number of lawyers there to 29.
She concentrates her statewide practice on real estate acquisition and development, and condominium and homeowner association issues. She represents owners and lenders in distressed condo sales, receiverships and loan workouts, and teams with developers and lenders in all aspects of sales contract and enforcement issues.
More background on John Mariani:
Mariani is a member of the Florida, New York and Pennsylvania bars and is admitted to the bars of the United States Supreme Court and of the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Third, Fifth and Eleventh Circuits. He is admitted to the bars of the United States District Courts in Florida, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania and to United States Tax Court. Mariani is listed in the publication The Best Lawyers in America in Commercial Litigation and is rated “AV Preeminent” by Martindale-Hubbell.
He is chair of the Florida 15th Circuit Judicial Nominating Commission, the Chair of a Federal Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Southern District of Florida, and is serving a six-year term on the Advisory Committee on Court-Annexed Mediation for the Southern District of Florida. He is Area Coordinator for NIAF, the National Italian American Foundation.
Mariani is a member of the Defense Research Institute, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and the Justice Major B. Harding and Craig S. Bernard American Inns of Court. He is a Fellow in the American Bar Foundation.
He is a graduate of the University of Miami School of Law, where he served on the Executive Board of the University of Miami Law Review after study at the University of Exeter in England. He received his B.A. from the University of Notre Dame and is a member of the Monogram Club, supporting the university’s athletic programs.
More background on Sandra Krumbein:
Krumbein defends developer clients against claims involving the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act and the Florida Condominium Act.
A frequent presenter and author, Krumbein has lectured for the University of Miami Institute on Condominium and Cluster Developments and for The Florida Bar on various condominium development issues. She serves as a mentor for law students of Nova Southeastern University through the Broad Fellowship Program. Krumbein co-authored a chapter on condominium conversions in The Florida Bar's treatise, Florida Condominium Law and Community Association Law (2007 edition).
Krumbein received her J.D. summa cum laude from Nova Southeastern University’s Shepard Broad Law Center, where she was an associate editor of the Nova Law Review and received numerous academic achievement awards. She received her M.S. in social work from Columbia University, and her B.A. cum laude from New York University.