C. Steven Yerrid

C. Steven Yerrid is the founder of The Yerrid Law Firm, P.A. and has practiced as a trial lawyer for more than 45 years. He has secured over 300 verdicts and settlements of $1 million or more for injured individuals and their families. Among his most notable achievements is a $217 million jury verdict for medical malpractice (the largest in Florida history and the nation's largest verdict in 2006), and a $330 million wrongful death jury verdict in 2009 (the country's largest that year). At age 30, Yerrid earned international recognition when he secured the complete exoneration of Captain John Lerro in the 1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster. In the 1990s, then-Governor Lawton Chiles appointed him as the youngest member of the 11-lawyer team that brought Florida's landmark lawsuit against the tobacco industry, resulting in a $17 billion settlement. In 2010, Governor Charlie Crist appointed him Special Counsel for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and he later obtained a $27.5 million settlement for the City of Tampa from BP. Yerrid is a lifetime member of the Inner Circle of Advocates, a recipient of the Florida Justice Association's Perry Nichols Award (its highest honor), and was inducted into the National Trial Lawyers Hall of Fame in 2016. He has taught as an adjunct professor at Stetson Law School and as a visiting professor at his alma mater, Georgetown University Law Center.