Shakeups at the Miami offices of Ver Ploeg & Lumpkin and Genovese Joblove & Battista were announced Tuesday, with five lawyers moving on to other firms.

Longtime Ver Ploeg partner Jason Mazer and Genovese Joblove partners David Cimo and Marilee Mark formed their own boutique litigation firm, Cimo Mazer Mark.

At the same time, Ver Ploeg partner Meghan Moore left the firm after 15 years to open the Fort Lauderdale office of Washington-based Weisbrod Matteis & Copley, a litigation and insurance recovery boutique. She took associate Chad Pasternack with her.

The timing of the two moves is coincidental, Mazer and Moore said. Stephen Marino, managing shareholder at Ver Ploeg, added there was no change at the insurance litigation firm ahead of the attorneys' decisions to leave.

“We've enjoyed a stable ownership for almost 20 years,” he said. “But there comes a time when younger partners decide that they want to strike out on their own. And when you have intelligent, talented lawyers, sometimes they have ambitions that they want to go out and do things the way they want to do them.”

The firm at one point had 28 lawyers, Marino said, and now lists 16 attorneys on its website. He said Ver Ploeg has been “steadily hiring out of law schools” and its summer associate program.

Moore has worked with Weisbrod Matteis partner Gary Thompson for many years co-representing hotel owners and managers with insurance claims. The firm's disaster recovery niche fit nicely with the work she's done over the years.

“I think we need to have a really calculated effort to help small and large claims and property owners, and they're willing to do that,” she said. ”It's attractive to me because I get to work with some really, truly exceptional lawyers, and they're good people, too.”

The Fort Lauderdale office will be the firm's fourth location after opening a Mississippi outpost last week. Weisbrod Matteis expanded to Philadelphia in 2016.

“Meghan's experience, which includes recovering over $40 million for condominium and hotel clients who suffered hurricane damage during the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons, makes her the natural choice to lead WMC's disaster recovery efforts in Florida in the wake of Hurricane Irma,” firm chairman Augie Matteis said in a statement.

Mazer, who started at Ver Ploeg in 1999, has worked with Cimo as co-counsel for more than a decade. Cimo and Mark represent fiduciaries in director and officer liability, professional liability, complex avoidance and bank liability litigation. Mazer has been brought in often over the years to handle the insurance component of those cases.

The trio started thinking it would make sense to open their own firm focused on representing fiduciaries, creditor committees, hedge funds, investors and pension plans. Mazer will also keep representing policyholders in insurance litigation.

Cimo Mazer Mark will be in the same building as both Ver Ploeg and Genovese Joblove — the downtown Miami Tower — and relationships with the former firms remain strong, Mazer said.

“There comes a point in your career where you want to do your own thing,” Mazer said. Cimo “belonged to a 50-lawyer firm, and I think mine was in the high 20s, and it was just not the business model that I wanted.”

Genovese Joblove's website lists 35 attorneys who focus on complex commercial litigation, bankruptcy and other business issues.

Cimo, who was not immediately available for an interview, worked with name partners John Genovese and Paul Battista for decades. In fact, Genovese said he and Cimo are the godfathers of each other's children.

Genovese said he doesn't expect any other departures from the firm. Cimo mentioned over the past few years wanting to focus on his practice, Genovese said, but there was no dispute or unmet request that led to the launch of the new firm. The two firms will remain as co-counsel on some client matters.

“He and I and Paul go back to the early '90s at Holland & Knight,” Genovese said. “We obviously wish him the best. We wish we all could have retired together, but life doesn't always work out that way.”