Key West Injury Lawyer Blog
Parrotheads can serenade themselves in traffic about lost salt shakers to their hearts’ content as they drive down State Road A1A, now renamed “Jimmy Buffet Memorial Highway,” thanks to one of two bills signed late last week.
Gov. Ron De Santis, R-FL, signed the bills that will now honor the late singer who passed away last September from a type of skin cancer, according to reporting from CBS Miami. The first bill would name State Road A1A after Buffet and the second would create a “Margaritaville” specialty license plate in honor of his most famous song. Proceeds from the specialty license plate will go to the Singing For Change Charitable Foundation founded by Buffet and initially funded by the earnings of his 1995 summer tour. The bills are slated to take effect starting Oct. 1.
Buffet was among some of the most influential clients represented by Leesfield & Partners, a personal injury and wrongful death law firm that opened its doors in 1976. The law firm’s Founder and Managing Partner, Ira H. Leesfield, spoke about his friendship with Buffet and history representing him as an attorney during an interview with the Two Lawyers Walk Into A Bar podcast hosted by Cooper Knowlton and Lee Bergstein, partners at a New York City-based real estate law firm.
He went into detail about the milestones he and Buffet reached in their respective careers since meeting in 1974 from the formation of Leesfield & Partners to Buffet going from making $20 a night to a $150,000 contract with Criterion Records that Leesfield oversaw. Leesfield added that Buffet’s hit song, “Woman Goin’ Crazy on Caroline Street,” was inspired by a woman they saw while on a walk together in Key West.
“Jimmy and I were very good friends … And he’s remained a friend,” Leesfield said during the interview.
Leesfield & Partners
Leesfield & Partners has acquired offices in Central and South Florida as well as Key West where Buffet lived for many years and always returned to perform. In its over four decades of practice, the firm has built a reputation as being one of the top personal injury and wrongful death law firms in the country earning it recognition from the likes of The Best Lawyers in America, Florida Legal Elite, South Florida Legal Guide Top Firm and Top Lawyers, South Florida Business Journal Key Partners Award, and Super Lawyers. It has set the record for automobile settlements within Miami-Dade County securing a $95 million settlement amount for a family who suffered the tragic loss of their daughter and catastrophic injury to their son after a drunk driver speeding and going the wrong way on I-95 hit them in a head-on collision.
Other significant lawsuits handled by the firm were catalysts for statewide regulation such as a case in Key West involving a family who, during their stay at a Key West hotel, became victims to carbon monoxide poisoning from a boiler room’s roof vent that was not inspected or repaired after being damaged in a hurricane. That case got national recognition from publications like the Washington Post and The New York Times.
In over four decades, Leesfield & Partners attorneys have become experts and leaders in their field with practice areas ranging from auto and motor vehicle accidents, cruise ship passenger injuries, catastrophic injuries, premises liability, injuries sustained in boating accidents, and other water-related incidents.
