Most attorneys have broad practice areas. Some develop the expertise or have a commitment to drill down into specialty areas where few venture. As part of the annual Professional Excellence Awards, the Daily Business Review recognizes three firms in South Florida with unusual pursuits. They may not fill a work week, but they can build reputations. The firms will be recognized for their innovative practice areas along with other honorees at a May 23 event at the Rusty Pelican in Miami.   SEXUAL ABUSE, SEX TRAFFICKING AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE COHEN MILSTEIN SELLERS & TOLL Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll represents and advocates for sexual abuse survivors in criminal investigations and trials, civil litigation and the news media. The team is led by Michael Dolce in the firm's Palm Beach Gardens office, who helped repeal Florida's criminal and civil statute of limitations for child rape victims. He is of counsel at the firm and a member of its complex tort litigation practice. Dolce acknowledged being a sexual abuse victim as a young boy in 2004 testimony before the state Senate Criminal Justice Committee and crusaded for six years to change state laws restricting victims' recovery rights. He also chaired the political committee Protect Our Kids First Inc. He has pushed institutions from schools to group homes to change policies and practices to improve child safety. Dolce is a frequent media commentator on sex crime investigations and survivors of child sexual abuse. Takisha Richardson, former chief of the special victims unit in the Palm Beach state attorney's office, joined the firm as an associate last year after overseeing human trafficking cases in Palm Beach County and handling 100 trials. She is an associate and is part of the abuse team and the complex tort litigation practice group. In a case decided after a weeklong trial in Gainesville last August, $4.6 million was awarded to an adult survivor of incestuous abuse. Addressing repressed memory issues, the firm also settled a child sexual abuse lawsuit in Virginia in 2017 on behalf of a 49-year-old South Florida resident more than 40 years after she was abused. Both attorneys are pursuing a 70-count negligent hiring case filed in April against a preschool in the District of Columbia alleging failure to protect eight 3- and 4-year-olds from sexual abuse by a teacher with no experience over a two-year period. The team also trains law enforcement and social service employees on working with sexual abuse survivors.   CONSUMER PRIVACY OMBUDSMAN AND PUBLIC WATCHDOG SALAZAR LAW Salazar Law created its consumer privacy ombudsman and public watchdog practice group in response to the proliferation of data breaches, email hacking and misuse of consumer information. The explosion of data privacy issues has driven a dramatic increase in international, national and state laws and regulations in the field along with multidistrict class actions and fines for corporate violators. Firm leader Luis Salazar's representation of troubled internet companies during the dotcom era led him to draft the privacy policy enforcement provisions, which were added to the Bankruptcy Code to prohibit bankrupt companies from misusing consumers' private information. The 2006 law was the first requiring the appointment of a consumer privacy ombudsman to serve as an independent third party protecting personal identifying information from misuse or inappropriate transfers. The Justice Department has appointed the four-attorney Coral Gables firm in nearly 25 matters since then to monitor the data of about 30 million consumers in bankruptcies ranging from BonTon Stores to Tweeter Audio. Work as a government-appointed privacy watchdog led to additional engagements from companies seeking an outside investigator to report on internal privacy issues, verify corporate compliance or serve as outside data privacy officers. Salazar is on the board of the International Association of Privacy Professionals' The Privacy Advisor and a member of the International Association of Privacy Professionals.   VERTICAL TRANSPORTATION SHAPIRO, BLASI, WASSERMAN & HERMANN Transportation law is a good-sized practice area. Vertical transportation? Not so much. Shapiro, Blasi, Wasserman & Hermann has carved out a niche as defense attorneys in litigation involving elevators, escalators and moving walkways. The firm insists no other law firm in Florida has its level of expertise or experience in the field. In 2018, the Boca Raton-based firm favorably resolved a multimillion-dollar claim against Miami-Dade County on behalf of elevator and escalator maker Kone Inc. and won dismissal of a case for a nonresident executive of Otis Elevator Co. on jurisdiction grounds. Other clients include industry leaders Schindler Elevator Corp. and ThyssenKrupp Elevator Corp. The niche practice can reach into construction, real estate, products liability, premises liability, commercial litigation and administrative law. Shareholders Stuart Weinstein, Robert Sacks and Richard Hermann are the core group of Shapiro Blasi attorneys in the field at the 24-attorney firm. They have worked for more than two decades with vertical transportation clients, normally without insurance requirements or constraints. But their practices extend beyond vertical transportation. Weinstein has worked on asbestos and talc litigation and construction defect, delay and lien claims. Sacks represents cosmetics developers and distributors, land developers, and auto dealers and distributors. Hermann has negotiated union matters and worked with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.