Cozen O'Connor's Miami office has a new leader, while the former managing partner in the city has been elevated to a firmwide strategic role.

Susan Eisenberg is the new office managing partner in Miami, after her predecessor Martin Schrier was promoted to chief strategy partner for the Philadelphia-based firm. Eisenberg, a partner in the labor and employment practice, joined Cozen O'Connor in 2015 from Akerman.

“We more than doubled in the last two years in Miami. I want to continue to grow it, but grow it in a very strategic way,” Eisenberg said. She said her aim will be to add to the firm's existing practice groups, and adding practices to match the firm's full-service model.

Cozen O'Connor opened in Miami in 2006 with seven lawyers. It now has 35 lawyers and provides litigation, corporate, labor and employment, intellectual property and real estate services. That expansion included the 2016 acquisition of Miami-based IP boutique Feldman Gale, and the addition of an immigration group from Fox Rothschild in early 2017.

In a statement Thursday, managing partner Vincent McGuinness said Miami remains “a strategic region in the growth of our firm.”

The South Florida market offers Cozen O'Connor cross-border opportunities, Eisenberg said, with potential business coming from central and South America. She said large firms have done well expanding there when they hire lawyers who know the market and make their practices national.

“You have to have people who are entrenched in the community and been here a while,” she said. “It's a very difficult market to bring people in from the outside and plant them.”

Schrier's promotion to a C-level role also demonstrates the firm's commitment to Miami and other regional offices, Eisenberg said.

“I think it does show that the firm, even though it started as a Philadelphia firm, has become national and prominent nationally, and is decentralizing some of those functions,” she said.

Also Thursday, Cozen O'Connor announced a new office managing partner in its New York Midtown office, Michael Schmidt.

Schmidt takes over for Abby Wenzel, who also co-chairs the firm's real estate practice. Schmidt, who joined Cozen O'Connor in 2005, was previously the second in command to Wenzel in the Midtown office, he said, and is vice chair of the labor and employment practice.

Schmidt will lead an office of more than 50 lawyers in Midtown. Cozen O'Connor also has a location in downtown Manhattan. Real estate, labor and employment and IP are major practices in the Midtown office, he said. The firm also added a lobbying group from Manatt, Phelps & Phillips last year.

Schmidt said he plans to continue deepening his office's existing practice groups. While growing in New York can be challenging for out-of-state firms, he said Cozen O'Connor has done well so far. He said laterals from New York based firms are attracted to the entrepreneurial strategy at Cozen O'Connor, and New York lawyers from other non-New York firms may find more support for their practices at Cozen O'Connor, despite the fact that it is headquartered in Philadelphia.

“It's certainly a difficult market, if for no other reason you've got a lot of competition,” Schmidt said. “How we've grown this office has been with people with really impressive New York clients and New York-based practices.”