Adam Moskowitz realized a few years ago that he needed to make a change.

One of the top federal class action lawyers in the country, Moskowitz has led enormous cases including force-placed insurance litigation that recovered more than $5 billion for homeowners who alleged their mortgage servicers took kickbacks from insurers.

But with huge victories came a lot of stress — and he wasn't handling it well.

“As the cases became more stressful and they became larger and I was traveling a lot more, I found myself getting more unhealthy,” said Moskowitz, who was leading the class action practice at Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton in Coral Gables. ”A lot of the lifestyles of lawyers involve drinking and involve celebration. When you win a big case, you open champagne.”

Drinking became his go-to method for relieving stress, and while it wasn't affecting his work, he felt he was on a “path to destruction.” Moskowitz realized something had to give.

“Having a beautiful wife and having three kids made me really analyze my situation,” he said. “I looked around and there were terrible things happening to people. People were committing suicide that I knew.”

A lot of lawyers deal with mental health issues but don't feel they can talk about them, he said. The issue has become a focus of the Florida Bar, particularly after the suicide of powerhouse litigator Ervin Gonzalez last year.

“You're fighting people so often that they're looking for any weakness in you, and you don't want to admit, maybe, that you have a problem,” Moskowitz said. “Or you don't want to seek help from those people that you're probably around the most because of this competition and how vicious our industry can be.”

Moskowitz quit drinking and got back to old habits of running races and practicing yoga. The resulting mental clarity gave the 50-year-old the resolve to strike out on his own, leaving the firm he'd joined as a second-year associate in 1993. He still has working and personal relationships with his old partners at Kozyak Tropin, but that firm wasn't his dream.

“I want my own future,” he said. “I want to create my own legacy and have my own traditions and really focus in on class actions.”

Two months after founding the Moskowitz Law Firm with partner Howard Bushman, Moskowitz leads a firm with four attorneys, several support staff and an office in downtown Coral Gables. He admits he's scared, but mentors such as legendary Miami attorney Aaron Podhurst told him they were scared, too — and it all worked out.

Moskowitz knows about perseverance, starting with his upbringing after his father left.

“My mom was amazing,” he said. “With nothing, she moved to Miami with my sister and I, and she worked five jobs. Five jobs. She was a nurse. She was a receptionist. She was a hostess. She did summer jobs — she worked at my summer camp as the nurse so we could go for free.”

Moskowitz said his mother also begged a private school to let him attend on a scholarship. From there he went to college, studied abroad in London and worked in Israel, all thanks to her.

Benlate Cases

When he graduated from the University of Miami School of Law, he joined a five-attorney firm that sent him during his second week to speak with a grower whose claimed his plants were dying because of the DuPont Co. fungicide Benlate. The firm took about 70 similar cases.

“They said, 'Adam, you go handle them,' ” Moskowitz said. ” 'You go travel around the state of Florida to Apopka, to Dade City, to Plant City, to Tallahassee.' I was a first-year associate. I knew nothing. I was getting killed. … I was learning trial by fire.”

But he broke the cases open during a trip to Costa Rica when he learned about Benlate studies done there that produced “horrible” results. In sworn interrogatories, DuPont said it had not done any testing in Costa Rica. Moskowitz's firm made a long-shot move and asked the judge to strike the pleadings and find against DuPont on liability — and she did.

The resulting settlements led to infighting over money and ethical issues among the partners, and the firm broke up. Moskowitz decided to take his cases with him to Kozyak Tropin. As a second-year associate, he negotiated a contract that would give him a percentage of the fees. Soon afterward, he did the openings and closings for a trial that led to a $130 million jury verdict against DuPont.

Forced-place insurance has been much of Moskowitz's focus for the past decade. He's also known for representing victims of Scott Rothstein's $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme and serving as lead counsel in a currency-conversion class action against American Express and securities litigation against Lancer Partners, among other cases.

At his new firm, he's leading class action litigation alleging life insurance companies are charging illegal rates to people near the end of their lives.

Take Care

His career isn't not slowing down. But Moskowitz now understands the importance of taking care of himself. He's thrilled about organizing the kids' field day at his synagogue, quipping that these days, he'd rather make the Temple Beth Am Commentator than the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

Moskowitz hopes he can inspire even one attorney struggling with drinking or stress to do something about it.

“The tragedies are these people who commit suicide and they leave their children orphans,” he said, beginning to choke up. “We had somebody in our school who died — her son is in our son's class. I can only imagine if my son grew up without a father. Maybe if that lawyer or that person says, 'Yeah, things are rough, but you know, Adam went through it, and he's a tougher person as a result of dealing with it. Maybe I'll go see somebody. Maybe I'll go talk to somebody.' ”

 

Born: 1967, New York City
Spouse: Jessica Moskowitz
Children: Serafina, Michael, Samantha
Education: University of Miami, J.D., 1993; Syracuse University, B.A., 1989
Experience: Founding and managing partner, The Moskowitz Law Firm, 2018-present; Partner, associate and class action chairman, Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, 1993-2018; Associate, Friedman, Rodriguez, Ferraro & St. Louis, 1993