Private mediation and arbitration for complex commercial disputes throughout Florida, drawing on a career of substantive trial and appellate work in the matters that come to the table.
“The best mediator in the room is the one who has actually tried the case the parties think they want to try.” — Practice Philosophy
Alex P. Rosenthal has spent thirty-seven years as a statewide Florida commercial litigator, with active trial and appellate matters in courts throughout the state, including Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Monroe, Collier, Hillsborough, and Orange counties. His appellate practice includes appearances in all six Florida District Courts of Appeal, the Florida Supreme Court, and the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, with reported decisions including matters of first impression in Florida and the Eleventh Circuit. He is admitted to The Florida Bar, the District of Columbia Bar, and the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. That statewide trial-floor and appellate experience is the substantive foundation that informs his work as a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil Mediator and Florida Certified Arbitrator. Mediations are conducted primarily by Zoom, with in-person sessions available throughout the state when the parties or the matter warrant the convening.
The mediator selection conversation is, at bottom, a question of credibility with both sides. Counsel who recommend a neutral are placing professional capital behind the recommendation. The objective here is to be a name that carries weight precisely because the underlying litigation experience is real, current, and acknowledged on both sides of the bar.
Mediations are conducted primarily by Zoom, which has become the practical default for commercial mediation across Florida and accommodates parties, counsel, and clients located outside the immediate region without the logistical burden of travel. In-person sessions are readily available where the parties or the dispute warrant the convening, at the firm's Weston office, at the Brickell City Tower Miami office by appointment, or at counsel's offices when more convenient for the parties. Arbitration engagements are accepted as sole arbitrator and as panel member in matters governed by AAA Commercial Arbitration Rules, JAMS rules, or Florida statutory arbitration procedures.
Breach of contract, business torts, partnership and shareholder disputes, business dissolution, tortious interference, and corporate governance disputes. Substantial experience with closely-held entity disputes where valuation and operational continuity are central.
First-party and third-party coverage matters, declaratory judgment actions, residential and commercial construction exclusions, additional insured disputes, and bad-faith adjuncts. Mediator perspective informed by sustained representation on both insured and carrier sides.
Lease enforcement, holdover proceedings, eviction, rent deposits, tenant improvement disputes, fire and casualty restoration disputes, escrow agent disputes, and exit and termination negotiations across retail, office, and industrial portfolios.
Construction defect claims, payment disputes, lien actions, performance disputes, and the statutory framework of Chapter 558. Familiarity with the residential construction exclusion and the policy-language disputes that govern coverage allocation.
Partition actions, contract for sale disputes, quiet title, easement and boundary disputes, broker commission disputes, and disputes among co-owners and within trusts holding real property.
Post-judgment proceedings supplementary, fraudulent transfer, foreign judgment enforcement, charging orders, and asset discovery disputes. Mediation in this posture is often where settlement discipline finally takes hold; substantive familiarity with the procedural mechanics matters.
The least productive mediations are the ones in which the neutral functions as a courier, carrying dollar figures from one room to another until the bracket narrows or the parties run out of time. The disputes that warrant serious counsel and serious clients warrant more than that. The work begins with the recognition that every commercial litigant arrives with concerns the pleadings do not capture, and that durable resolution depends on giving those concerns the same attention as the numbers.
Mediation submissions are read in full, in advance. Confidential ex parte communication is welcomed. The expectation is that the mediator arrives knowing the docket as well as the parties do, and that the substantive law governing the dispute is understood before the parties sit down rather than learned in the hallway.
Mediators are not permitted to render legal opinions or predict outcomes, and they should not. What an experienced commercial litigator can do is share the candid lessons of thirty-seven years in courtrooms across Florida, in plain terms, in caucus. Parties are challenged to weigh the genuine costs, risks, and unknowns that real litigation produces, rather than hypothetical concerns drawn from a textbook. That is a different exercise from telling a party it will lose. It is the exercise of helping counsel and client see the dispute with the clarity that distance and experience provide.
Almost every commercial dispute involves concerns the complaint does not articulate. Reputation, ongoing business relationships, family dynamics in closely held entities, the cost of continued distraction, the value of finality, the principle of the matter. Counsel who have lived these cases know how often the apparent dispute over dollars is in fact a dispute about something else. Caucus time is used to surface those interests, with appropriate sensitivity, so that the resolution offered is responsive to what is actually at stake rather than to a partial articulation of it.
Mediations that look stuck at four o'clock are often the ones that settle at six. The default posture is to keep the parties working when there is meaningful work still being done. When there is not, impasse is called honestly rather than dragged through additional hours that benefit no one. Counsel and clients should leave knowing whether the matter was given a real chance, and if not settled, why.
Notes from the practice. Written from the vantage point of a litigator who has worked the same matters from both sides of the table.
What unlocks cases that the dollar negotiation alone never produces. The principal who needs to be heard. The relationship both sides actually want to preserve. The reputation that is not in the complaint. The apology that cannot be coerced. The future-business carve-out that becomes consideration. And what counsel can put in the mediation submission to make all of it more likely.
Read the article →Counsel selecting a mediator for a commercial dispute focus on the obvious credentials, but what active commercial litigation experience actually produces in the room is different from what bios advertise. Procedural map, real cost calculus, settlement structures in inventory, collectability analysis grounded in actual post-judgment work, and the drafting eye that catches what would otherwise produce the next case.
Read the article →Notes from thirty-seven years of litigating and now mediating commercial lease disputes in Florida. What the accrued rent number actually leaves out, why both sides usually want the tenant to stay, when the personal guaranty is more negotiable than either side assumes, and how Section 83.232 changes the leverage in the room.
Read the article →
The substantive work that supports mediation and arbitration practice is ongoing rather than retrospective. Active matters in the firm's commercial litigation practice include insurance coverage disputes, commercial lease enforcement, construction and construction defect litigation, partnership and shareholder disputes, trade secret protection, post-judgment collection, employment and non-compete enforcement, and real estate litigation. The disputes that arrive at mediation are, in substantive terms, the same disputes that arrive at trial. The perspective offered as a neutral is informed accordingly.
Reported decisions over thirty-seven years of practice include several rulings of first impression and precedent-setting opinions in Florida and the Eleventh Circuit. In United States v. Stein, 881 F.3d 853 (11th Cir. 2018) (en banc), the Eleventh Circuit overruled more than thirty years of contrary precedent and held that an otherwise admissible affidavit is sufficient to defeat summary judgment even though self-serving and uncorroborated. In Martin v. Florida Power and Light Co., 909 So.2d 555 (Fla. 4th DCA 2005), the Fourth District established the duty of utilities in underground damage cases, the first Florida decision to do so. In Briceno v. Sprint Spectrum, L.P., 911 So.2d 176 (Fla. 3d DCA 2005), the Third District addressed the ability to bind parties to standard contractual terms posted on the internet. In J & P Transp., Inc. v. Fidelity and Casualty Co. of New York, 750 So.2d 752 (Fla. 5th DCA 2000), the Fifth District established automatic trebled civil damages following a criminal conviction for theft, the first Florida decision on the question. In Enriquillo Export & Import, Inc. v. M.B.R. Industries, Inc., 733 So.2d 1124 (Fla. 4th DCA 1999), the Fourth District clarified that payment by check does not constitute payment when mailed.
Recent appellate work has included GFA International, Inc. v. Trillas, 327 So.3d 872 (Fla. 3d DCA 2021), in which the Third District reversed the denial of a temporary injunction enforcing a non-compete agreement and rejected arguments that the trial court had improperly weighed individualized economic hardship in violation of Section 542.335; Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. v. Wolfson, 299 So.3d 28 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), affirming a $1.6 million underinsured-motorist verdict and addressing setoff calculations; Off the Wall & Gameroom LLC v. Gabbai, 301 So.3d 281 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), a case of first impression holding that children who procure a contract by fraud are bound by the contract and cannot invoke the infancy defense; Fields v. Toussie, 295 So.3d 1191 (Fla. 4th DCA 2020), affirming the issuance of a writ of bodily attachment against a judgment debtor on a domesticated foreign judgment exceeding $8 million; Inside the Art of Craftmanship Corp. v. Design Center of the Americas, 237 So.3d 378 (Fla. 4th DCA 2018), addressing rent-deposit requirements in commercial-tenant litigation; and Acquisition Trust Company, LLC v. Laurel Pinebrook, LLC, 226 So.3d 325 (Fla. 2d DCA 2017), reversing a dismissal with prejudice in a right-of-first-refusal dispute.
Trial-court work has included substantial recent results, among them Venture Investment Group II, LLC v. Nurish.me, Inc., in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit in and for Miami-Dade County, in which the firm obtained summary judgment in the amount of $7,889,660.79 on claims for breach of two promissory notes, and Jacob Taylor and Studygate, LLLC v. Studygate, Inc., 2025 WL 1658205 (S.D. Fla. June 3, 2025), in which the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida dismissed all claims against nonresident defendants for lack of personal jurisdiction in a complex case involving a $675,000 asset purchase agreement.
Federal-court precedent over the years has included Design Center of the Americas, LLC v. Mike Bell, Inc., 254 F.Supp.3d 1339 (S.D. Fla. 2014), the first published opinion in the Southern District of Florida clarifying that a counterclaim is irrelevant to the amount-in-controversy analysis in a removal setting; Almany Investors, Ltd. v. Nextel South Corp., 2015 WL 74091 (S.D. Fla. 2015), confirming termination rights under a Communications Site Lease Agreement following the iDEN network shutdown; Harty v. SRA/Palm Trails Plaza, LLC, 755 F.Supp.2d 1215 (S.D. Fla. 2010), addressing standing limitations under the ADA; Watson v. Adecco Employment Services, Inc., 252 F.Supp.2d 1347 (M.D. Fla. 2003), one of the first decisions to address limitations on temporary-staffing-firm liability for discrimination against a temporary employee; and In re Turner, 519 B.R. 354 (Bankr. S.D. Fla. 2014), awarding Rule 11 sanctions in a Chapter 13 bankruptcy proceeding.
Mr. Rosenthal serves as an independent neutral on the panel of National Arbitration and Mediation, a leading alternative dispute resolution provider in the United States. NAM panel membership reflects independent vetting by an institutional ADR provider and gives counsel the assurance that comes from a neutral evaluated and selected against national standards. Engagements through NAM are accepted alongside party-selected and court-appointed work. Ongoing service as a court-appointed mediator and arbitrator continues to refine the practice. Recent arbitration work has included service as sole arbitrator in commercial disputes, with written final opinions issued in matters governed by institutional arbitration rules.
Recognition over the years has included Best Lawyers in America in both Commercial Litigation and Construction Litigation; selection to the Florida Super Lawyers list; AV Preeminent rating from Martindale-Hubbell; selection to Florida Trend's Legal Elite; election as Senior Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America; and inclusion in U.S. News and World Report's Best Law Firms. Of these, the peer-reviewed and editorial honors are noted because they reflect evaluation by the legal community itself rather than by paid-listing services. The point of cataloguing the work is not promotional. It is the verifiable record on which counsel may evaluate whether the substantive depth offered is genuinely commensurate with the complexity of the dispute presented.
Yes. Mr. Rosenthal is a Florida Supreme Court Certified Circuit Civil Mediator and a Florida Certified Arbitrator. He conducts mediations in commercial circuit civil matters throughout Florida.
Complex commercial disputes including breach of contract, partnership and shareholder disputes, insurance coverage disputes, commercial landlord-tenant matters, construction and construction-defect disputes, real estate disputes including partition actions, business torts, trade secret disputes, and post-judgment collection matters.
Mediations are conducted primarily by Zoom, which has become the practical default for commercial mediation in Florida and accommodates counsel and clients without the logistical burden of travel. In-person sessions are available at the firm's Weston office, at the Brickell City Tower Miami office by appointment, or at counsel's offices when the parties or the matter warrant the convening.
Fees are quoted on a half-day or full-day basis, with rates available on inquiry. Fees are typically split equally among the parties unless the parties or a court order direct otherwise. Cancellation and rescheduling policies are provided in the engagement confirmation.
Scheduling generally accommodates a two-to-four-week lead time for full-day mediations, often less for half-day matters. Expedited scheduling is available where docket pressure or court order so requires.
Yes. Mr. Rosenthal serves as sole arbitrator and as panel member, including in matters governed by AAA Commercial Arbitration Rules, JAMS rules, and Florida statutory arbitration procedures.
A statement of facts, a candid assessment of legal issues including authorities the party considers controlling and adverse, a discussion of damages or remedies sought, a description of prior settlement discussions, and any confidential considerations relevant to resolution. Submissions are typically due five business days before the mediation.
Inquiries from counsel are welcomed at any stage of the litigation. Conflict checks are completed promptly, with a calendar offer typically returned the same business day.