Lewis F. Murphy led the advocacy group in Miami for a decade. He focuses his practice on complex litigation. He has extensive experience with securities and fiduciary duty litigation, both class actions and derivative claims, proxy contests and corporate takeovers, as well as class actions for insurance retail sales fraud. Lew also advises on investigations by the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation and Florida Attorney General into insurance sale practices. He has represented numerous special litigation committees and conducted other internal investigations. Lew has significant experience with closely held corporation disputes. He handles both US and non-US commercial litigation, international hidden assets/probate proceedings and appellate cases.

Lew has been recognized by his peers for multiple years in The Best Lawyers in America, including recognition in the 2012 edition for insurance law and banking and finance, bet-the-company, commercial, securities, and trusts and estates litigation, and as the 2012 Miami Lawyer of the Year for insurance law. He was selected as the 2009 Miami Lawyer of the Year for bet-the-company litigation. He has also been recognized for multiple years in Florida’s Top Lawyers, Top Lawyers in South Florida, Florida Trend’s Legal Elite and as a Florida Super Lawyer. He continues to be listed in Chambers USA as a leader in his field for litigation. He has been rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell since 1989.

Lew served as a judicial clerk in the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He is a past vice chairman and was a member of the Appellate Court Rules Committee of The Florida Bar for 20 years. He also is president emeritus of the University of Florida Law Review Alumni Association.

He has served on the editorial advisory board for the Federal Regulation of Securities by Lawyers Cooperative Publishing and is author of the CLE course Loan Loss Reserve Litigation: A Defense Perspective by the Practising Law Institute.

Representative Experience

Directors and Officers Liability, Securities Fraud

• Representing investment advisors in action by investors in the Madoff and Rothstein Ponzi schemes.
• Representing outside directors of a bankrupt public company in Maryland breach of fiduciary duty claims by the liquidation trustee.
• Representing officers of a superregional bank in a Florida securities fraud claim by bank borrowers based on purchasing holding company stock before FDIC receivership.
• Representing former officers and directors in adversary proceedings by trustees in multiple bankruptcy proceedings involving dairy products and offshore gambling cruises.
• Representing a company and its Board of Directors in a Delaware class action arising out of a reverse stock split.
• Representing a company, its officers and directors in putative Delaware and Florida class actions to enjoin a US$3.8 billion merger of commercial real estate holding companies.
• Representing former officers and directors of a cruise line in an action for US$100 million by liquidating trustee for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud.
• Representing the former CEO of an apparel manufacturer in a shareholder securities class action and parallel action by a liquidating trustee for US$113 million.
• Advising a company, its officers and directors for more than five years in securities class actions, SEC investigations, bankruptcy proceedings and breach of fiduciary duty litigation arising out of a US$75 million loss resulting from false and misleading financial statements for a government securities company.
• Representing multiple officers and 50-percent shareholders in closely held corporate control disputes and derivative lawsuits for mismanagement or dissolution in dairy, sugar cane, petroleum engineering and commercial real estate industries. 
• Counseling a company and inside directors and officers of a utility holding company in various matters including an investigation by a special litigation committee, a federal securities fraud class action and a related state derivative action arising out of the write-off of approximately US$900 million and abandonment of a non-utility business.
• Representing underwriters in a class action for violations of Section 11, 12(a)(2) of the 1933 Act and negligence misrepresentation regarding a US$20 million IPO.
• Representing the estate of an officer and director in a securities fraud action by condominium and hotel unit owners.
• Representing numerous small to medium-sized companies and officers or directors in class actions for securities fraud in an initial public offering, secondary public offerings, public disclosure filings and alleged insider trading.
• Representing the former CFO of a big-ticket-to-small-ticket leasing company created by a US$500 million IPO rollup in class actions for securities fraud.

Insurance Company Liability and Receiverships

• Representing a Florida homeowner insurance company in a Division of Administrative Hearings petition over terms of conditions for a withdrawal plan involving 1.2 million policies.
• Representing a Florida homeowner insurance company and its officers and directors in securities fraud class action and derivatives action with respect to earnings guidance and loss reserving reports.
• Advising the largest US-based life insurance holding companies and insurance subsidiaries in multiple representations in a joint RICO investigation by the Florida Department of Insurance and Florida Attorney General into insurance sales practices based on alleged churning, improper replacement and vanishing premiums.
• Representing a life insurance company in an investigation by the Florida Department of Insurance and parallel class actions by policy holders into the insurance premiums based on race.
• Representing a national life insurance company in an investigation by the Department of Insurance into retail sales practices in Florida and a class action for US$400 million predicated on alleged fraud in sale of limited partnerships.
• Advising non-US insurance companies in litigation with respect to the Latin American and Caribbean distribution system, regulatory and commercial issues.
• Representing a New York law firm in claims for US$300 million based on breach of fiduciary duty, attorney malpractice, breach of contract, federal securities fraud and RICO in parallel state and federal proceedings arising out of the receivership of an insurance company.