Mike is a creative, strategic, and highly disciplined warrior lawyer, happiest in the fight to advance his clients’ interests. Mike’s approach to trial is heavily influenced by his deep martial arts background which provides clients unique technical, tactical and strategic options to win. Through three decades of trial practice, Mike developed the refined judgment to choose the right option at the right time: to confront an adversary with overwhelming force, use a party’s momentum against him, or exercise equanimity to seize opportunity from disaster. As a true martial artist, Mike operates with disarming calm, confident in his ability to destroy when necessary, and content to be underestimated by adversaries with little actual trial experience. His martial arts background offers a philosophical and practical under-pinning for trial work that one-dimensional litigators lack. He is a most courteous and yet most dangerous lawyer. If you are in the fight of your life in court, you want Mike on your side.

Mike’s small but concentrated trial practice delivers high energy and remarkable results. For example, applying one martial arts maxim (“apply the most effective weapon to the most vulnerable target”), Mike obtained dismissal of claims against an African nation arising from a power generation dispute. In that case, a global energy firm engaged in the business of design, installation, service and operation of power plant systems hired a large US law firm to sue the Republic of Angola in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The plaintiff claimed that Angola failed to pay in excess of $52 million due for operation and maintenance of two of Angola’s power plants. Relying on its firm’s reputation and intimidation tactics, plaintiff aggressively threatened Angola with prejudgment attachment of local assets and a premature effort to obtain summary judgment. Rather than capitulate, Angola engaged Mike. In close coordination with local counsel for Angola, Mike quickly and completely avoided the lawsuit by applying the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (the most effective weapon) to establish the jurisdictional infirmity (the most vulnerable target) of the plaintiffs’ claims. As a result, Mike successfully persuaded the plaintiff to voluntarily dismiss its lawsuit.

As he did for Angola, Mike has applied martial arts wisdom to benefit his clients throughout his legal career. He has defended clients from hundreds of millions in liability exposure, and captured extraordinary recoveries for clients involved in a wide range of disputes, from aircraft engines to agriculture, from architects to attorneys’ malpractice claims. While Mike has tried cases in numerous substantive areas, his concentrations include international disputes, energy, aerospace, transportation, professional malpractice, real estate, construction and healthcare. A summary of some of Mike’s other noteworthy outcomes is included under the discussion of industry expertise here.

Education

• Juris Doctor, cum laude, University of Miami School of Law, 1990
• Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, Middlebury College, 1987

Admissions:

• Florida Bar
• Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals
• United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
• Trial Bar, Southern District of Florida
• Admitted on a pro hac vice basis to various state and federal courts throughout the United States

• Africa Investor State Disputes: Gleaning Order from the Chaos, Distinguished Guest Speaker at the Litigation Counsel of America Conference in Palmetto Bluff, South Carolina, 2019
• Numerous CLE presentations regarding; Conflicts of Interest, Deposition Preparation and Tactics
• The NOPEC Non-Event, Africa Oil & Power, August 23, 2018
• Small Firms Represent African Oil and Power Entities with Big Results, Africa Oil & Power, July 25, 2018
• Sleeping Jurors: A Trial Lawyers Nightmare, Distinguished Guest Speaker, Renaissance Symposium, New York, 2018
• Disaster Equanimity and Opportunity: The Virtue of Composure in Crisis, Distinguished Guest Speaker, Renaissance Symposium, San Francisco, 2018
• 8 Terms Aerospace Transactions Should Include, Avionics Magazine, July 21, 2017
• Trial Aikido: Let Your Opponent Dictate His Demise, Distinguished Guest Speaker, Renaissance Symposium, Harvard Club, New York, 2017
• The Perfect Expert, Distinguished Guest Speaker, Litigation Counsel of America Conference at Amelia Island, 2016
• Professionalism within Client Issues, Moderator, Complex Commercial Litigation Institute, 2015
• The Use of Technology Assisted Review, Distinguished Guest Speaker at the Litigation Counsel of America Conference in Newport Beach, California, 2014
• Predictive Coding Levels the Playing Field, Distinguished Guest Speaker at Litigation Counsel of America Conference, Santa Barbara, California, 2013
• The Tao of Cross Examination, Distinguished Guest Speaker at Renaissance Symposium, Telluride, Colorado, 2012
• Legal Issues Surrounding the Development and Use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Distinguished Guest Speaker, Paris Air Show, Paris France, January 2004
• Chapter 2A of Secured Transactions in Florida, 1990—a Florida Bar Publication
• Michael David Ehrenstein. A Moralistic Approach to the Ozone Depletion Crisis. 21 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 61 1 (1990) Available at: https://repository.law.miami.edu/umialr/vol21/iss3/5 

• United States of America Goju Federation, 6th Dan
• Litigation Counsel of America, Senior Fellow
  • President, 2022
  • Peter Perlman Service Award recipient
  • LCA Trial Master Certification
  • Trial Law Institute
  • Diversity Law Institute of the Litigation Counsel of America
  • Complex Commercial Litigation Institute, Treasurer
  • Litigation Counsel of America Hall of Fame Selection Committee, Member
• Operation Homefront, Regional Advisory Board working to build strong, stable and secure military and veterans’ families
  • Liaison to Miami Veterans’ Court
• Abacus Worldwide, board member, helped to start and grow a broad international alliance of accounting and legal professional
• Florida Association of Managing Partners, Member
• Middlebury College Alumni Interviewer
• Greater Miami Hillel, Former Outside Board Member and Chair
• South Florida Aviation Maintenance Council, Member
• Greater Miami Aviation Association, Member
• The Florida Bar Grievance Committee 11”I”, Member

Litigation Counsel of America:

• Senior Fellow
• Peter Pearlman Service Award Recipient
• Barrister, Order of Justitia
• Advocate, Order of Veritas
  
  

Routinely recognized as top ranked business trial attorney by:

• Florida Super Lawyers
• South Florida Legal Guide
• South Florida Business Journal
• AV® Preeminent™ rated by Martindale-Hubbell
• Top Rated Litigator by American Lawyer and Corporate Counsel Magazines
• The National Trial Lawyers Top 100
  
  

2023 ALM Best Mentor Award 

2025 Best Lawyers in America Award

2025 Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America