Philip Gerson
VerifiedAbout Philip Gerson
Philip M. Gerson is the Founder and Senior Partner of Gerson & Schwartz, a personal injury law firm based in Miami, Florida. He founded the firm in 1970 and has practiced law in Miami for more than 50 years.
The firm has earned a reputation as one of the nation's leading personal injury, cruise ship accident, and maritime injury law firms, handling serious and catastrophic injury cases, wrongful death claims, and rape and sexual assault cases both on land and at sea.
Gerson served as the founding president of the National Crime Victim Bar Association advisory board in Washington, DC. He co-authored When Negligence Leads to Crime, which appeared as the cover feature lead article in the December 2002 issue of TRIAL, the Journal of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA).
Gerson earned his Juris Doctor cum laude from the University of Miami Law School, where he was a member of the editorial board of the Law Review, a Moot Court winner, and a student instructor in legal research and writing.
He is admitted to the Florida Bar.
He holds a Preeminent AV Rating from Martindale-Hubbell and is consistently recognized in the Top Lawyers listings of the South Florida Business Review, Super Lawyers, and many other lawyer rating publications.
Notable case results
A Miami jury awarded $37.5 million in gross compensatory damages to John Lukacs, a 76-year-old attorney who developed bladder and oral cancer after three decades of heavy smoking. The trial court later entered a reduced judgment of about $24.8 million, which the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed.
A Miami-Dade jury awarded $5 million in January 2023 to the family of Robert Hoffman, who died of lung cancer at 46 after smoking Marlboro cigarettes as a teenager and quitting before age 30, with Philip Morris held 60 percent at fault.
A Lee County jury awarded $2,180,044 to John Kenneth Anderson after The Bottom Line nightclub in Fort Myers served alcohol to a 19-year-old patron who then attacked Anderson in the parking lot, causing a traumatic brain injury with permanent memory loss and partial hearing loss.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Each case is unique and depends on its own facts.
