Michael Cotzen

Michael Cotzen is an AV rated lawyer on Martindale Hubbell and began practicing law in 1999. Prior to forming Cotzen Law, P.A., Mr. Cotzen practiced at four premiere South Florida law firms - - Hall, David and Joseph, P.A.; Kluger, Peretz, Kaplan & Berlin, P.L.; and as a partner at Schlesinger and Cotzen, P.A. and at Mansfield Bronstein, PA. Michael has significant experience in real estate litigation and foreclosure defense, general business and commercial litigation, probate litigation, employment law, business and partnership disputes, and representing beneficiaries of life insurance policies. Mr. Cotzen has also written dozens of appellate briefs in Florida’s appellate courts, in the Eleventh Circuit and elsewhere. In addition, Mr. Cotzen presented a continuing education seminar for several years on Fraudulent Transfers.

Michael Cotzen has worked on many complex litigation matters in which millions of dollars were in dispute. He has also practiced in sports and entertainment law, representing athletes such as a top ten women’s tennis player, a major championship winning golfer, an Indy race car driver, and a world class hockey player. 

Mr. Cotzen has twice won the Daily Business Review's Most Effective South Florida Lawyer Award. He first won in 2011 in the probate category for the work that he did in Brigham v. Brigham, where he was part of a trial team that obtained a $9 million judgment, including $1 million in punitive damages, on behalf of his clients. He won the same award in 2013 by leading a team of lawyers on behalf of the Peninsula Condominium Association who invalidated a note in a mortgage foreclosure case, paving the way for the association to assume ownership of a luxury condominium worth more than a million dollars without an enforceable note.  He has also been named a "Super Lawyer" a distinction given to only five percent of the members of the Florida Bar.

Mr. Cotzen received his undergraduate degree from the University of Florida in business administration and insurance, and completed his legal education at the University of Florida College of Law, graduating in 1998. While there, Mr. Cotzen received a book award in Legal Drafting and served as a Teaching Assistant for Legal Research and Writing. In addition, Mr. Cotzen was a member of Florida Blue Key, was elected to the University of Florida Hall of Fame in 1998, and was the chairman of Accent, the nation’s largest student run speaker’s bureau.  He is also a brother of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.

Mr. Cotzen is admitted to practice in the State of Florida, in the United States District Courts for the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida, and in the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit and Eleventh Circuit.  He has served as the Vice President of the North Dade Bar Association and is a member of a Florida Bar Grievance Committee.

Mr. Cotzen has served as the President of his synagogue, Beth Torah Benny Rok Campus, and has served on its Board of Directors for approximately twenty years.  He lives in Miami with his wife, Marla, who is an emergency room physician at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, and their two sons.  He loved coaching his son's baseball team in the North Miami Beach Little League for many years.