Reed Smith Brings Aboard Prominent Insurance Lawyer in Miami
The addition is the first big lateral hire for Reed Smith's 2-year-old Miami office.
March 28, 2019 at 03:03 PM
3 minute read
The original version of this story was published on Daily Business Review
Ver Ploeg & Marino partner Stephen Marino, Jr., left, and Reed Smith partner Hugh Lumpkin, right.
Ver Ploeg & Lumpkin name partner Hugh Lumpkin is joining Reed Smith in Miami, bringing a team of three other attorneys with him.
The team, which includes Matthew Weaver, Camilla Cohen and Christoper Kuleba, will move in late April. Lumpkin and Weaver are joining as partners, while Cohen and Kuleba will be associates.
Ed Mullins, managing partner of Reed Smith's Miami office, said the hires were a huge win for the nascent office, which opened in 2017. While the office has added attorneys since opening, growth has largely come with transplants from other offices, he said. This is the first major lateral.
“This is the start of what we want to be doing in Miami,” Mullins said.
Lumpkin has built a national insurance practice representing policyholders in evaluating, settling and litigating coverage and extra contractual claims, and often worked with Reed Smith attorneys over the years. The firm has a large national insurance practice staffed with approximately 70 attorneys, and the national platform of Reed Smith was a huge draw for Lumpkin.
“It's not about leaving Ver Ploeg,” said Lumpkin, who helped build the firm since arriving in 1999. “We love practicing law together and care about each other, but this is an opportunity that presented itself and one that I'm welcoming. … I've always wanted to have a national practice.”
Weaver was hired by Ver Ploeg 11 years ago and has been part of Lumpkin's team. Like Lumpkin, his practice focuses on representing commercial policyholders.
Ver Ploeg managing partner Stephen Marino will be elevated to name partner, and the firm will be renamed Ver Ploeg & Marino. Marino has been with the firm since 1997.
“It's bittersweet that after our 20 years together this is where we've grown to,” Marino said. “But our different practices are better suited to different formats.”
Marino said Ver Ploeg & Marino will offer the same high-quality, Florida-focused and niche representation it is known for. After the departure, the firm will have 13 attorneys, according to the firm's website.
“There's nobody in the state that does what we do,” Marino said. “We continue to be a unique law firm in that we focus our practice almost entirely on the litigation, trial and appeal on insurance coverage and bad faith issues.”
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