Plucked from the sky: Podhurst Orseck earned a reputation—and millions of dollars—representing the victims of airline disasters. But its plucky founder Aaron S. Podhurst says the firm has just begun to define its niche

South Florida CEO, August, 2005 by Jaime Hernandez

"We can respond very quickly to changes in market forces," says Diaz. "If one area of law is starting to become less profitable, like medical malpractice because of all the reforms, we have the ability to move very quickly."

Ervin A. Gonzalez, a civil litigation attorney with Colson Hicks, has worked alongside Podhurst Orseck's attorneys numerous times on both sides of the aisle. "They do their fair share of the work [as co-counsel]," Gonzalez says. "It's not like other relationships where you have co-counsel but they wait for their fee and you do all the work."

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He locked horns with the firm when his client sued Miami-based Lennar Homes Inc. Gonzalez describes opposing Podhurst Orseck as hardly a mouth-watering experience.

"They don't have a lot of lawyers," he says. "If they need help, the help they're going to get is another star on the bar. They're not afraid of the courtroom. If you need a real trial lawyer to try a case in front of a judge, these lawyers can do that, and do it well."

Podhurst Orseck's appellate practice is not too shabby, either. Grossman, of Grossman and Roth, says his firm has entrusted Podhurst Orseck with its appeals for 30 years.

"We have had the wonderful good fortune of getting some enormous verdicts and they've never lost any of our verdicts on appeal," Grossman says. "That kind of proven performance is why I keep going back to them."

Podhurst, Perwin and legal observers say the firm's legal talent is the primary driving force behind Podhurst Orseck's success. Most of its attorneys have tenures of at least 20 years and have never worked at another firm. Several have graduated at the top of their respective classes from law schools such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Dartmouth. Three of them--Barry L. Meadow, Michael S. Olin and of-counsel Walter H. Beckham--are certified to try cases in front of the US Supreme Court.

Perwin says when a position does open, Podhurst likes to target young attorneys who are willing to assume a lot of responsibility early in their careers. He describes Podhurst as "frank" with job candidates about the intense workload, pressure and competition, but also reassures newcomers that they can rely on senior partners for help and mentoring. Podhurst himself is readily accessible to the attorneys, going so far as to have a direct extension from the office to the phone in his Aspen, Colo., vacation home.

"They are very selective in who they bring in as a new young associate," says US District Judge James Lawrence King, whose former law clerk, Ricardo Martinez-Cid, now is an associate attorney at Podhurst Orseck.

Diaz says turnover at the firm occurs every 10 years or so, when the older attorneys decide they need to bring in a younger associate to help them do the legwork on cases. He and Podhurst say they want to perpetuate the firm by having lawyers in their 60s mentoring 40- and 20-year-old attorneys, something Diaz dubs a "generational passing of the torch."

"Like any good CEO, he's very good at cultivating young people and bringing them along and thinking of the day when he's not around, and how will there be continuity," Diaz says of Podhurst.