Go-to Lawyers Change Firms

Go-to Lawyers Change Firms

By Janet Leiser

Senior Editor

Fred Zinober and Lyann Goudie were well known in the Tampa Bay area legal community before they joined Barry Cohen's high-profile firm three years ago. But two jury verdicts, worth a combined $24 million, within four months added to their reputation as expert litigators.

Now Zinober, 53, has been named a partner at the Tampa office of Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, one of the top five litigation boutiques in the United States, and Goudie, 46, is joining Wilkes & McHugh PA, a firm that pioneered nursing-home litigation in Florida.

"We will miss Lyann and Fred," Cohen says. "They are both very, very capable advocates. However, we'll continue to represent our clients with the same type of advocacy we developed with them."

In December, Goudie and Zinober obtained a $16 million verdict, including punitive damages, against the owner of Remington Apartment Homes on behalf of Lai Chau, who was kidnapped from the Tampa complex and shot three times, left for dead. Jurors awarded Chau $10 million in punitive damages, citing lax security at the apartments.

Then in March, the two lawyers obtained a $6 million verdict against Seven One Seven Parking Services Inc. and The Garage, a bar, on behalf of the parents of a teenager shot and killed while waiting in the parking lot for friends. Jurors cited negligent security again.

In that case, jurors found the parking company was 20% liable, while the bar, which previously settled with the plaintiffs, was 80% liable.

"It was the deadly combination of Fred and me," Goudie says of that verdict. "Again we were blessed with very good plaintiffs."

That win was more satisfying than the larger verdict several months earlier, Goudie says, adding: "So many people were telling us we weren't going to get anything. It's an open air, 19-space slab of concrete in downtown Tampa. The defense's big issue was they hadn't even paid to park there."

But Goudie and Zinober convinced jurors that a lot attendant collected money from nighttime visitors and then left. The lot was poorly lighted and "completely unmaintained," she says.

Break up

Zinober left Cohen, Jason & Foster PA in April to work as a solo practitioner. "I thought I wanted to break out on my own, but then I got the opportunity to join these guys, and I decided it was something I couldn't pass up," he says.

In addition, he realized he'd rather practice law than deal with the headaches of running his own firm.

Zinober was a lead trial attorney in the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office from 1982-86. He later developed a name as an expert litigator in private practice. In the early 1990s, his profile climbed further when he was involved in what was then one of the Tampa Bay area's most sensational murder cases. He defended Oba Chandler, who was eventually convicted of killing an Ohio woman and her two daughters and dumping their bodies in Tampa Bay.

At Zuckerman Spaeder, Zinober joins an old courtroom adversary, Lee Fugate.

"When I was a prosecutor, Lee was considered the top criminal defense lawyer in Pinellas County," Zinober says. "I tried cases against him, and I learned a lot from him."

Zinober spent 16 years as a commercial litigator prior to joining Cohen. At Zuckerman Spaeder, he plans to focus on commercial litigation and develop a plaintiff's practice involving high-stakes cases.

"That's something new to this firm," Zinober says. "They were not only amenable to it, but they welcomed it."

He says he learned a lot from Cohen about litigation support, technology and investigation. "He does things first class, and I learned how to adapt that to what I'm doing here," he says.

In turn, Cohen says he plans to expand his downtown Tampa 12-lawyer firm by adding commercial litigation to its practice areas, which now includes personal injury and criminal defense. "We want to represent the economically weak against big corporations," Cohen says. "We are developing lawyers who want to do that type of work."

Half the team

Goudie, a Miami native, worked as a prosecutor for then-state attorney Janet Reno after college.

She later moved to Tampa and worked as a prosecutor for Harry Lee Coe. In 1997, she joined the public defender's office.

Goudie is known for her aggressive style on whichever side of the courtroom she sits. In 2000, she took on a high-profile Tampa case that gained national attention. She defended Valessa Robinson, a teenager accused of killing her mother.

At Cohen's firm, Goudie has taken on other high-profile criminal cases, including the defense of Kristine Gaime, the Pasco woman accused of murdering one of her children.

Goudie will continue to defend Gaime with attorney Mark Ware after she switches firms in early October, she says. Gaime's trial is scheduled for Oct. 31.

Gaime has been in jail since 1999 when the youngest of her two sons was found dead in a minivan in the family's Land O' Lakes garage. Her oldest son was drugged, but alive. She was mostly incoherent at the time. Authorities say it was a failed murder-suicide attempt.

Gaime's parents divested most of their assets, Goudie says, to hire Cohen's firm to defend their daughter. Goudie contends Gaime is innocent.

"I've got to see it to its end," she says.

As for changing firms, she says: "I have a vision of where I want to be in 10 to 15 years. I no longer felt I was going to be able to get there from here."

At Wilkes & McHugh, she'll focus on civil litigation and personal injury, not criminal.

Cohen taught her to be "aggressive and creative and to think outside of the box," she says. And she expects to learn much more at her new firm.

"They have some great lawyers," Goudie says. "Bennie Lazzara is the best. I'd give my right arm to try a case with him."

As for Zinober, she says, "Hopefully one day we'll be able to work together again."