San Juan, Puerto Rico. Photo: Shutterstock.com

Washington, D.C.-based boutique Weisbrod Matteis & Copley has opened an office in San Juan, Puerto Rico, amid its work on hundreds of policyholder claims in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria's 2017 landfall.

The firm, which focuses on representing plaintiffs in insurance recovery actions following natural disasters, has already launched new offices this year in South Florida and Mississippi. It also announced splashy new hires in Philadelphia and Washington, including the former head of Reed Smith's D.C. office, Gary Thompson.

Weisbrod Matteis announced Thursday that the Puerto Rico office will be led by Jose Nieto, a Puerto Rico native who began his career as an associate in the Washington office of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Nieto joined Weisbrod Matteis as partner in March after talking with Augie Matteis, the chairman, who practiced with Nieto at Skadden in the 1990s.

“It's going to be a game changer,” Nieto said of the San Juan office. “The law firm is here for the long haul. It's not just people coming here for a few cases and then leaving.”

Nieto, who has based his practice on the island for two decades since leaving Skadden, said Puerto Rico has not had law firms that represent plaintiffs be able to tackle major claims on a contingency basis, which gives Weisbrod Matteis a unique opportunity. He said the firm is making a substantial investment to grow its Puerto Rico offerings. The new office currently includes Nieto, an associate and several paralegals.

A handful of large U.S. law firms already have offices in San Juan, and other big mainland firms, including Greenberg Traurig; O'Melveny & Myers; Paul Hastings; Proskauer Rose; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, have capitalized on work stemming from the struggling territory's debt reorganization.

Solving Puerto Rico's dire economic problems will require the involvement of forces on Capitol Hill, Nieto said when asked about Gov. Ricardo Rossello's decision to skip a House Natural Resources Committee hearing in Washington this week. Rossello skipped the hearing involving the government-run power utility because of a tweet he viewed as disrespectful directed at him from the House Committee's Twitter account.

Amid Nieto's enthusiasm for Weisbrod Matteis' prospects in Puerto Rico, where the firm already represents 200 policyholders battling insurers over property damage and business-interruption losses, he acknowledged renewed concerns for the islanders as they face the 2018 hurricane season. Given the weak state of the territory's infrastructure, Nieto said, it will not take a Category 4 hurricane like Maria to knock out the electrical grid.