Harley Tropin Honored with American Jewish Committee’s 2016 Judge Learned Hand Award
Award is highest honor given by AJC in legal profession
MIAMI – April 26, 2016 – Harley S. Tropin, president of Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton, received American Jewish Committee’s 2016 Judge Learned Hand Award on April 13. Nearly 400 legal, business and community leaders attended the gala dinner at Jungle Island. AJC established the annual award in 1964 to recognize leaders in the legal profession for their excellence and contributions to the practice of law and the community at large.
The highest honor given by AJC within the legal profession, the Judge Learned Hand Award recognizes the memory of Judge Learned Hand, noted for his significant decisions in constitutional law and anti-trust. The recipients of this award are people who embody much of what the judge represented: the rights of the individual and the importance of democratic values in an orderly society. This philosophy also sums up a major thrust of AJC’s work and the programs it has promoted since its inception in 1906.
“Harley has set a high standard for passion for the practice of law along with commitment to service to the community,” said Brian Siegal, director of AJC’s Greater Miami and Broward Regional Office. “We are honored to recognize Harley’s contributions to the profession and the improvement of our community, adding his name to an illustrious roster of legal luminaries whose professional and personal achievements greatly enhance our society.”
Tropin, a leading high-stakes business litigator, has received many prestigious awards and accolades for his significant contributions to the legal profession and community during the past 30 years. Under his leadership, Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton began as a three-attorney law firm in 1982 and grew over the years into a 25-attorney firm nationally renowned for its work in bet-the-company litigation, class actions, bankruptcy, and massive financial frauds. (In fact, Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton has been involved in the litigation of every major financial fraud in South Florida since its inception – and there have been many.) The firm’s key practice areas each stemmed from major cases that Tropin took early on in the firm’s history.
For example, in the recent $500 million Ponzi scheme involving disgraced Fort Lauderdale lawyer Scott Rothstein, Tropin and his team represented most of the defrauded investors in recovering more than 95% of their losses.
Tropin also has represented 700,000 physicians and their medical societies, including Texas Medical Association, the California Medical Association and others. Tropin served as co-lead counsel in a national class action against major HMOs including Aetna, Cigna and Humana for systematically denying doctors reimbursement for services provided to patients by down-coding medical services through the use of their computerized reimbursement procedures. The case resulted in the recovery of billions of dollars both in actual cash payments to the doctors, and improved reimbursement procedures and dispute resolution methods.
Tropin has received national recognition from his peers as a member of the Board of Directors of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers and the American Board of Trial Advocates. He currently serves as a professor of trial advocacy at the University of Miami School of Law and was recognized by the Law school with its Alumni Achievement Award in 2012. He is a member of the Federal Judicial Nominating Committee, has served as a director of the Greater Miami Jewish Federation, and co-chairs the Federation’s Annual Judicial Reception.
Tropin supports Miami community organizations in every way he can. One of his greatest passions is improving access to mental health services and fighting discrimination against those suffering from mental illness. Toward that end, he is co-chair of the Advisory Board to the University of Miami Medical School Department of Psychiatry. Harley also has served on the Florida Supreme Court Committee on Gender Bias and Diversity and is an integral part of the Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton commitment to diversity in the workplace and community.
About Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton
Kozyak Tropin & Throckmorton is a complex commercial litigation firm founded in 1982 that focuses its practice on bet-the-company commercial cases, bankruptcy matters and class actions. For more information, visit www.kttlaw.com.
About AJC
For more than a century, AJC has served as a leading global Jewish advocacy organization. AJC works to enhance the well being of the Jewish people and to advance human rights and democratic values for all. Working in over 100 countries through intensive outreach to top decision-makers and diplomats, AJC is uniquely qualified to provide a global response to critical issues facing the Jewish people, Israel, and the world today. In an increasingly interconnected world, AJC engages the world’s political, religious, and ethnic leaders through high-level diplomatic meetings that build upon long-standing relationships. For more information visit www.ajc.org.
About AJC Judge Learned Hand Award
AJC, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing human rights and democratic values in the U.S. and worldwide, established the Judge Learned Hand Award in 1964 to recognize leaders in the legal profession for their excellence and contributions to the practice of law. The award honors the memory of Judge Learned Hand, a highly distinguished individual recognized as heir to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ legacy of a Jurist and Poet of Liberty. Judge Hand, a graduate of Harvard and its law school, was widely admired as a Dean among American jurists, and was well-known for the extensive range of decisions he tendered that centered on questions of constitutional rights and antitrust legislation.
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