David W. Hirshfeld, partner with Lubell Rosen. Courtesy photo

Fort Lauderdale-based Lubell Rosen has expanded outside South Florida for the first time by opening a Tampa office.

David Hirshfeld, who has practiced law for nearly 25 years, was recruited to join the new office as a partner focused on advising licensed health care providers and unlicensed companies in health care, insurance and other third-party payers.

With a third office in Coral Gables, Lubell Rosen provides full-service representation and defends entrepreneurs and business owners in industries ranging from construction to telecommunications. Lubell Rosen also represents physicians and other health care professionals and businesses.

Explaining the move, co-managing partner Mark Rosen said, “It's strategic to the point that we had always wanted to go north. … The opportunistic part is that we hooked up with David, so that made it work out.”

The 30-attorney law firm is in talks with another attorney to supplement Hirshfeld's work and may hire an employment attorney in Tampa as well to handle federal litigation in the Middle District of Florida.

“We already have a number of clients in Tampa, all over Central Florida and northern Florida,” Rosen said. “We have been serving them out of Coral Gables and Fort Lauderdale. It's just better for our clients to have a presence there. We want to be locals. We just want to move our footprint further up the state.”

Orlando is another option.

“I do see Orlando as an area that we need to move into next,” he said. But Rosen cautioned, “I would like to take the time to not rush to the next one until this one is done correctly.

Lubell Rosen is definitely on a growth trajectory.

“If we got to 40 by the end of 2019 on slow, quality growth … we would consider that a success,” said Rosen, who leads the firm with Steven L. Lubell. The firm has added about seven attorneys in the past year.

“We're looking for a reasonable pace of quality growth, and we're trying to continue targeting health care providers that are not hospitals, that need the high-quality service but not at a big-firm price, for lack of a better term,” Rosen said. “We believe the market for that is wide.”

The current focus is growing “the depth of our bench in the health law area,” he said.

Hirshfeld and some Lubell Rosen partners had common clients from working in the substance-abuse field.

He has concentrated on the substance use disorder, or SUD, treatment sector, representing treatment providers, physician groups, clinics, clinical labs, lab managers, recovery residences, and marketing, lead generation and billing companies.

Hirshfeld also was one of the original board members of the Florida Association of Recovery Residences.

Hirshfeld has served as full-time in-house counsel at several insurance companies, a health care marketing company and an SUD treatment provider.

The Tampa resident is licensed to practice in Florida and New York.

“I'm honored to lead Lubell Rosen's new Tampa office and to be a part of the firm's expansion to Florida's west coast,” he said in a statement. “I look forward to providing the extraordinary services for which Lubell Rosen is renowned to our Tampa office clients.”