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14 NE 1st Ave | Suite 800 | Miami, FL 33132 | 305-741-LAWS (5297) | Toll Free: 855-741-LAWS (5297)
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QUICK LINKS
14 NE 1st Ave | Suite 800 | Miami, FL 33132 | 305-741-LAWS (5297) | Toll Free: 855-741-LAWS (5297)
Karla Ortiz joins Perkins Law Offices as Director of Business Development and Marketing bringing over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. Karla graduated from Nova Southeastern University with a Bachelor of Business administration and a minor in psychology. While at Nova, she received a full athletics scholarship all four years which helped her develop and sharpen her leadership skills, teamwork and time management skills. A four-year starter earning most valuable player her sophomore, junior and senior year, and being named team captain both Junior and Senior year, Karla finished her collegiate career breaking and currently holding 13 Nova (NCAA) records. Following her successful collegiate career, she jumped right into the real world working for a nationally recognized ticketing company where she was a strategic part of the team for 11 years growing the company making it the premiere ticketing company for nightlife and events. Karla stayed in the ticketing space for a few more years transitioning to one other company where she exceeded her quota every quarter qualifying for Presidents Club. All of the skills Karla has acquired throughout her professional career to-date has helped prepare her to succeed in her current role at Perkins Law Offices. Karla works side by side with all of the attorneys at Perkins Law Offices. From onboarding new clients to preparing the attorneys for trial, she is a key team member in moving cases forward and making sure the clients are up-to-date. In addition to working with all the attorneys at the firm, Karla works closely with the marketing team in assuring Perkins Law Offices stays ahead of the ever-growing competitive marketing space. Karla is fully bilingual.
AREAS OF PRACTICE
As a litigator and transactional attorney licensed to practice in both Florida, and in Italy, Alexander Guttieres has over thirty years of experience in handling a broad range of civil and criminal matters in the United States and throughout the European Union. Mr. Guttieres’ extensive professional experience in the common law and the civil law systems, as well as his international background and proficiency in various languages make him uniquely qualified to assist individual and corporate clients in complex litigation, and in a wide array of commercial transactions, and family disputes. His international practice allows him to provide his clients the added benefit of responding to their particular linguistic and cultural needs, which is especially effective when their claims or interests stem from contacts varied jurisdictions, as in the case of mixed marriages.
During the course of his diverse international practice, Mr. Guttieres has been involved in substantial litigation and arbitration, as well as a variety of commercial ventures and transactions throughout the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. As an attorney also specialized in family law, Mr. Guttieres has assisted many clients throughout the world, including various public figures who were involved in high profile international family disputes. Mr. Guttieres’ firm maintains close correspondence relationship with attorneys throughout the United States and in Europe that enable it to provide clients with and efficient and effective assistance in numerous countries.
Throughout his career, Mr. Guttieres has lectured and taught extensively, and has organized numerous international conferences and symposiums.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND
Before moving to Italy in 1992 to pursue a law degree from the University of Rome that would allow him to gain admission to the Italian Bar in 1996, Mr. Guttieres practiced in Miami since 1981 as an associate and partner in several law firms in Miami, where he specialized in tort, family, and contract law, as well as commercial litigation. In 2009, Mr. Guttieres became a founding partner of the International Law Offices of Guttieres & Grillandini (ILO), with offices in Rome and Miami.
Mr. Guttieres’ accomplishments in ILO include:
EDUCATION
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science; University of Chicago – 1978.
Juris Doctor; University of Miami – 1981.
Juris Doctor; University of Rome, La Sapienza – 1994.
BAR MEMBERSHIP
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES/ASSOCIATIONS
LANGUAGES
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES/ASSOCIATIONS
Johnathan Padilla knew from a very young age that he wanted to be an attorney. The son of Nicaraguan immigrants, he was taught the importance of hard work and dedication which he devotes to every case, no matter the size. Born and raised in Florida, Johnathan graduated cum laude from St. Thomas University while working full-time at Perkins Law Offices. Outside of the courtroom, Johnathan enjoys sporting events and spending time with his family. E-mail: jp@PerkinsLawOffices.com
Alexander J. Perkins is recognized as one of the Legal Elite attorneys in the State of Florida and listed in the numerous editions of Super Lawyers, Legal Trend Magazine, and the South Florida Legal Guide as well as being recognized by the Daily business review’s Most Effective Lawyers. He enjoys a 10 out of 10 rating on AVVO and is a lifetime member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum. He proudly served as the President of the Miami Beach Bar Association and is currently on its Board of Directors. He his also a licensed Real Estate agent. Mr. Perkins focuses his civil practice on advising, consulting and litigating on behalf of clients involving substantial financial and personal consequences including serious injury cases and commercial and real estate disputes. Mr. Perkins has a vast array of experience, knowledge and utilizes an aggressive approach to obtain results.
Mr. Perkins is a skilled litigator who repents clients from all walks of life. In his injury practice he has represented professionals and the homeless alike. In his commercial and real estate practice, he has consulted represented individual business people who have been wronged, as well as well known companies and retailers. In the past few years, the firm’s real estate law and advising practice has grown do to the booming land prices in South Florida, and the inevitable legal issues that accompany such explosive growth.
The firm’s personal injury department primarily focuses on representing victims and their family members who have sustained serious injury or death, against responsible parties and their insurance companies. For over 16 years he has been handling complex civil litigation involving a variety of personal injury and wrongful death actions arising out of vehicle accidents, cruise ship passenger and crew injuries, defective products, medical malpractice, nursing home abuse and negligence, premises liability (slip/trip and falls), negligent security, boating and maritime/admiralty accidents, construction site and work zone accidents, drunk driving accidents, sexual abuse and physical assaults, the Federal Tort Claims Act, bad faith insurance practices, dog bites, bar and nightclub incidents, intentional torts and all other negligence based harms. Perkins Law Offices also accepts hurricane and fire property damage claims also known as first party insurance claims and Assignment of benefit cases.
Mr. Perkins has represented clients from all over the United States and internationally. Before forming his own firm, Mr. Perkins was a Partner in a prestigious Miami FL personal injury law firm where he made Partner in under three years. His partnership coincided with the resolving of a tragic case for a prominent Miami family who lost two of its members in a car accident during major highway construction on I-75. The case culminated in a recovery of $10,500,000 and involved many different aspects of law including uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage (UM), bad faith insurance law, auto negligence, seatbelt and ejection issues and highway and work-zone construction negligence. The at-fault driver who started the collision was underinsured with an inadequate bodily injury policy of only $50,000 limits. By thoroughly investigating the scene of the accident in person several times, combing through stacks of daily construction logs, interviewing key people with knowledge and listening over and over again to witness statements, Mr. Perkins discovered that active repaving work being performed on the highway at the time of the accident was defective. There was an impermissible and out of the design plan “drop-off” of the pavement between the travel lane to the shoulder. It was that dangerous shoulder “drop-off” that caused the 17 year old at-fault driver to lose control of his low profile vehicle when he momentarily left the roadway. Initially the construction company doing the repaving work denied the existence of the dangerous “drop-off” height, claiming it was part of the design plan and was standard in the industry. But Mr. Perkins’ relentless legwork revealed that the construction company tried to hide their negligence by leveling down the dropoff wthin 24 hours of the accident. Mr. Alexander Perkins litigated this case for several years and turned $50,000 of insurance coverage into a combined settlement of $10,500,000 which included extra-contractual dollars due to bad faith on the part of one of the insurance companies.
Mr. Perkins was very proud to conclude several years of wrongful death litigation arising out of a defective and negligently maintained ventilator resulting in a $2,500,000 award for the family a young man with muscular dystrophy. The ventilator he depended on to breath malfunctioned when the power to his home was lost. Some of the best personal injury lawyers in Florida declined to take the complicated case or were not interested in it because the young man had a shortened life expectancy to begin with and because the manufacturer and maintenance company claimed the product worked properly. Not satisified with relying on the defendants representations, Mr. Perkins’ intuition led him to investigate deeper. His hunch was right. Attorney Perkins’ persistent discovery requests and video taped depositions revealed that not only did the defective medical device not receive its proper preventive maintenance, but that the FDA and manufacturer had received thousands of complaints about battery and alarm malfunctions for years that went without proper corrective and preventive action. In many instances the ventilators were returned to the manufacturer who said the malfunction could not be duplicated back at the factory. This is akin to giving the gun back to the murderer during a murder investigation! Mr. Perkins’ gut led him to fly in a renown medical technology expert from San Antonio, Texas who downloaded the ventilator’s black box called electric programmable memory. This blackbox download at the joint inspection helped to prove the time line of events, the lack of maintenance and the product defects. The above are but a couple of examples of how Mr. Perkins’s experience, perseverance, and clever approach to hard cases led to multi-million dollar damage awards for his injured clients and their loved ones.
Before choosing to protect the rights of individuals against insurance companies, irresponsible corporate entities and individual wrongdoers, Mr. Perkins primarily worked as a defense lawyer retained by trucking companies and insurance companies. His familiarity with the other side’s way of thinking and procedures used in evaluating and defending personal injury lawsuits, gives him an insight and competitive advantage. His inside knowledge and distaste for how some businesses care about profits over people, inspires him to fight back to level the playing field for the “little guy” who cannot otherwise do it himself.
A Maryland native, Mr. Alexander Perkins earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Maryland before moving to Florida, where he earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami School of Law. Mr. Perkins is a member of the Florida Bar and District of Columbia Bar. He is admitted to practice in all the State and Federal courts within Florida. Mr. Perkins is also of counsel to an Orlando, FL law firm so as to have a centrally located launching point to handle cases anywhere throughout the state. He also is of counsel with his family’s law firm in his home state of Maryland and to a prominent law firm in Rome, Italy. These strategic associations extend the reach and services Perkins Law Offices can offer its clients.
MEMBERSHIPS
HONORS
EDUCATION
ADMITTED TO PRACTICE