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Attorney Profile

Peter J. Yanowitch 
Coral Gables, Florida
phone (305) 443-2100
fax (305) 443-2600
email Email Me

After completing the judicial clerkship in 1981, Mr. Yanowitch relocated from Syracuse to Miami, Florida . There he joined the law firm of Murray Sams, Jr., who is a nationally renown trial attorney. Mr. Yanowitch was trained by Mr. Sams to work on his most important cases, including serious personal injury, medical malpractice, complex products liability and federal securities fraud. Many of these cases were bitterly contested disputes which were only resolved after the trial phase. Within five years, Mr. Yanowitch worked his way up the ladder at the firm and became a named partner; the firm's name becoming Sams, Yanowitch, Spiegel & Alger. 

While at the Sams, Yanowitch firm, Mr. Yanowitch successfully represented over one hundred limited partner investors in the ill fated DeLorean sports car venture. Some of his clients included entertainers Sammy Davis, Jr. and Roy Clark. The DeLorean litigation involved three separate lawsuits in which Mr. Yanowitch's opposing counsel were extremely accomplished and nationally renown law firms, and often out manned him five to one.

The case required Mr. Yanowitch to unravel an international securities fraud of immense proportions which took place in a variety of countries including:  England, Northern Ireland, Switzerland and several different states of the United States . Nevertheless, after years of aggressive and bitterly contested litigation, Mr. Yanowitch was able to return to his clients millions of dollars. During this litigation, Mr. Yanowitch prevailed in a substantial appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which broke new ground in federal securities law.  The Court of Appeals agreed with Mr. Yanowitch's legal arguments and set dramatic new precedent on the scope of a professional's duty to investors under the federal securities laws. 

Through the DeLorean litigation Mr. Yanowitch had the privilege of meeting and working as co-counsel with attorney Sidney Davis, a nationally known specialist in securities and finance litigation.  Mr. Davis was the senior and presiding partner of the then called Davis, Markel & Edwards, a forty lawyer litigation firm based in New York City, with clients that included IBM, Deloitte & Touche, KPMG Peat Marwick, Westinghouse, and Boeing. In 1988, and at only age 33, Mr. Yanowitch was recruited by Mr. Davis to head the firm's first effort at expansion--the creation of a Miami branch office.

Davis , Markel & Edwards' Miami branch was first staffed by Mr. Yanowitch alone. However, as the managing partner, he soon turned the Miami office into a success and it since has grown to its present staff of ten lawyers. This includes an ex-federal judge recruited by Mr. Yanowitch to the firm. The Miami office of the firm was eventually retained in some of Miami's largest and most complicated commercial cases, involving the demise of Miami's once premier corporate institutions, including: Centrust bank, General Development Corporation, and AmeriFirst bank. Mr. Yanowitch left this firm after seven years to establish his own firm, The Yanowitch Law Center.

For relaxation, Mr. Yanowitch races sports cars, he is a black belt in Karate, and he teaches Karate at a local school.                          

Areas of Practice:
Business & Commercial Law
Real Estate Law
International Investment
Immigration and Investor Visas
1031 Exchanges / FIRPTA
Motorsports and Entertainment
Divorce & Family Law
Bar Admissions:
Florida, 1982
New York, 1988
U.S. District Court Southern District of Florida, 1982
U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit, 1982
U.S. Supreme Court, 1982