Help wanted and found

Wanted: A litigation department to flesh out a full-service law firm.

Found: Hermelee Cowart & Minkin, a six-lawyer Miami practice with the urge to merge.

Last week, after a yearlong search for the right litigators, Miami’s 23-lawyer Matzner Ziskind Kosnitzky & Jaffee finally tied the knot. Until the merger, Matzner Ziskind, founded as a five-lawyer health-care boutique in 1988, had offered its clients nearly every kind of business-law service except litigation. Hermelee Cowart has handled commercial litigation and appellate cases for Citibank, the Florida Department of Insurance and Crum and Forster, a major insurance carrier.

The merged firm will be called Matzner Ziskind Hermelee Kosnitzky Jaffee & Truxton. Gregg Truxton, a real estate lawyer, joined Matzner Ziskind last year.

“I think the Hermelee lawyers enhance our ability to serve our existing clients,” said Gary Matzner, the firm’s managing partner. “Bruce Hermelee is real quality; Michael Minkin is a former assistant U.S. attorney, and Todd Cowart was first woman partner at Blackwell Walker.”

Matzner said his firm, which previously had farmed out much of its trial work to powerhouse Miami litigation firms such as Adorno Zeder and Greer Homer, will handle the work in-house.

Hermelee says his group will rise to the challenge.

“We’re just as good as they are,” he said. “We’re a very well-kept secret.”

Name partner Mike Kosnitzky insists he doesn’t mind being bumped down a notch on the firm’s marquee.

“We want to be able to market our litigation services and to show the community that we have litigation capabilities,” Kosnitzky said. “It’s important to prominently display Hermelee’s name within the firm name for that purpose.”