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Gregory Andrew Anderson: Practicing on the Edge

Gregory A. Anderson might be the most well-known attorney in Florida right now, and depending on the audience, the nation. But most lawyers and judges in his home city of Jacksonville have almost no idea who he is.

The Kowalski Case

As the attorneys for the Kowalski family, more than 10 million viewers watched Anderson and his wife, Jennifer, on their seven-year odyssey for justice for Maya Kowalski and her family in the Netflix document, “Take Care of Maya.” Since its release in May 2022, Netflix reports it has been watched by perhaps twice that many viewers worldwide.

It’s a bit surreal to the Andersons. “We worked so hard for so long to get [the resulting verdict], but we labored in the dark a good deal of the time,” Anderson said. “Until the verdict last November, the focus was on Maya and her family, as it should be. Up to that point, the only people who really knew the story were the Netflix film crew following us around. They saw how hard it was. It took a lot of perseverance.”

In November 2023, Anderson secured one of the largest malpractice verdicts in Florida history – $261 million. Post-verdict, following the televised nine-week trial, it was easy to say it was worth it. But seven years ago, Anderson had his doubts.

“When Jennifer first presented the case to me, I said, ‘I don’t do medical malpractice, too many friends who are doctors … and it looks incredibly complicated.’”

But Jennifer convinced him that it wasn’t just malpractice. “She explained that this involved a little girl literally kidnapped by a huge hospital (Johns Hopkins), aligned with a particularly obnoxious Florida Statute, Chapter 39, involving ‘medical child abuse.’”

Post-Verdict Kowalski Case News Conference

Jennifer was adamant that this one deserved their attention. She explained that Maya Kowalski, 10, was misdiagnosed as having been abused by her mother, a first-generation Polish immigrant, who also happened to be a nurse. The issue was the use of the anesthetic Ketamine to break the “pain loop” at the heart of Maya’s disease, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).

Beata Kowalski spent months fighting the hospital and the Florida Department of Children and Family (DCF), trying to get Maya properly treated for CRPS.

CRPS is the most painful neurological disease known to medicine, scoring over childbirth with no medications, severe burns and loss of a limb on the McGill Pain Index. Patients describe it as having your flesh burning under your skin for weeks, with no way to extinguish it. Episodes appear and disappear with no known reason, but the victim is always in pain. It is so painful that it is also known as the “Suicide Disease” because of the high rate of suicide among its victims.

There is no known cure, and the treatments are varied and controversial, particularly the Ketamine administered to Maya.

After her first episode in 2015, Beata and Jack Kowalski became desperate to find an effective treatment. Maya had been in and out of the hospital seven times before an emergency admission between October and 2016. A new group of young ER doctors and nurses decided they did not agree with the use of Ketamine and called the DCF doctor, Sally Smith. Smith did a 20-minute examination and pronounced it child abuse.

“That began a three-month period of what can only be described as torture for the child,” Anderson said. “She was forced to sleep in her own feces to force her to walk to the restroom even though she hadn’t walked for over a year, physical abuse by one of the social workers and the emotional abuse of being told her mother had mental problems and that the social worker would become her mother. Beata was barred from seeing her daughter and her twice weekly phone calls harshly monitored by the same social worker.”

Through Jack, Beata knew her daughter was deteriorating while under the hospital’s care, which consisted largely of various doctors telling her it was all in her mind.

On the evening of January 11, 2017, after it became clear that her child was dying from the failure to treat the disease, and that she was blamed, Beata Kowalski committed suicide by hanging herself in the family garage.

In 2019, after almost two years of litigation, the Andersons were approached by a producer from Netflix about doing a documentary. Not knowing where this would lead, the Andersons got the OK from the Kowalskis.

The result was the Emmy-Nominated “Take Care of Maya,” a 90-minute documentary which takes the audience along on the Kowalskis’ search for a treatment and then for justice. After its successful debut at the Tribeca Film Festival, it continued in the top 10 for more than two years.

The case also spawned a book by the same name, written by James DeFelice, who is known for his best-selling book, “American Sniper” as well as a possible dramatic feature film. Anderson DeFelice and another writer have also been drafting a book focused on the litigation and trial, tentatively titled, “American Lawyer.”

The reality behind all the recognition was far from easy. The case was the worst kind of litigation war.

We worked so hard for so long to get [the resulting verdict], but we labored in the dark a good deal of the time.”

“Well for one thing it was the longest time to get a matter to trial I’ve ever seen,” Anderson said. “Talk about over-litigated! We were on our eighth amended complaint; having had to amend every time a new fact entered the picture. There were 51 summary judgment motions by the defense and well over 100 depositions, including five of Maya. In total there were over 3700 docket entries.”

The clerk at the Second DCA, where the case is currently on appeal, allegedly said it was the largest docket they had ever seen.

Anderson’s wife and family paid a price as well. “We were running 10-20% billing deficits for years,” Anderson said. “The money to pay the rent and payroll had to come from somewhere — and that was me and Jenn.”

When COVID hit with record inflation, their lines of credit were soon exhausted. “We were cashing out investments,” he said.  “But there was no other way.”

Even after the verdict, the headlines, the documentary, Anderson shares that he still wonders about taking on the case. He credits the decision to keep going to bring in the ultimate nuclear verdict to certain personality traits and events in his life. By 2022 they were forced to sell their home on the intercostal. At home Annaliese (11 at the time) and Grayson (9) really didn’t like that.

“Much of my success is based on the things I learned from high-level competitive swimming,” he shared. “My coach Randy Reese taught me to never give up, to never quit and to achieve in life based on the concept of ‘deferred gratification.’

“It means you can work, work, work for a desired goal but it may take a long time to get there … and sometimes you never get there,” he continued. “I see a lot of attorneys get worn down and frustrated to the point of quitting, giving up. I never quit … maybe even when a well-adjusted attorney would have.”

The Kowalski case was proof of that.

The Coultas Case

“I’ve had a lot of tough cases. The Coultas v. General Electric aviation disaster (involving the death of eight firefighters and horrible burn injuries to three more) in 2008 was enough to make me want to quit. I remember the general counsel confronting me two weeks into the trial and literally screaming at me in the hallway, ‘…Why don’t you go away! You can’t win!’”

Perseverance. And in that case, it resulted in a $71.5 million verdict.

The Coultas case also resulted in the book, Iron-44, which chronicles the struggle against the combined trial teams from General Electric and Sikorsky both assisted by NTSB throughout the case. At one point, the government agency changed the cause of the accident from engine failure on take-off to overloading by the flight crew.

“Interestingly, the NTSB changed its entire theory and focus after it lost key engine parts placed in the hands of one of the defendants for NTSB testing,” Anderson said. “That’s where I learned about the relationship between government and business.”

Still, AndersonGlenn, LLP kept at it in a courtroom 2,400 miles away from home.
“After the Coultas case, I said, ‘Well I’m never doing that again!’ And yet here I am.”

Greg A. Anderson And Maya Kowalski at Fox News

Starting Out

After his swimming career at Duke University left him with lackluster grades, Anderson applied to Nova Southeastern Law School, which had just been accredited.

Despite a rocky start academically, he made law review his second year and graduated with honors. He did well enough to win the YLS Judicial Scholarship Award and ended up back in Jacksonville, clerking for (soon to be) Supreme Court Chief Justice Major B. Harding. He credits Harding and Circuit Judge Sam Goodfriend for getting him his first job.

“They knew I was starting to look when I was finishing up my clerkship, so Sam Goodfriend called up experienced trial attorney, Charles Cook Howell, III. He simply said, ‘I got one for ya!’ I never really interviewed. I started the following Monday.”

After a year and a half at the Howell, Liles firm, Howell moved to Commander Legler Werber Dawes and Sadler. Anderson came with him.

“Working for Charlie was never easy; he was a taskmaster but so was my dad and swim coach, so it didn’t faze me. It did seem like a lot of the older lawyers we were up against felt sorry for me. I remember Noah Jenrette offering me a job with him and Charlie Boyd, right in front of Charlie. But I believed in the concept of loyalty as well, so I stayed put.”

Anderson watched Howell closely to learn how to successfully try a case. “Judge Harding told me to forget how much money you make in the early years and just find the best trial attorney who will hire you and watch everything they do, and that it will pay off. So that’s what I did.”

Anderson says he was the “garbage man” at the Commander firm, meaning he would take any case to trial that others did not or would not take.

He worked with different attorneys on many different types of cases, developing knowledge. In the evenings he was socialize with a group that included Jacksonville Bar luminaries such as Tom Edwards, the late Jeff Morrow, Rufus Pennington, Don St. Denis, John McE. Miller, Nathan Goldman. Cindy Laquidera, and others who have gone on to build successful careers.

In the fall of 1990, Commander Legler merged with Foley & Lardner. By that point, Anderson had his own client base and didn’t like the deal the young partners were offered. “They wanted us junior partners to go back to being associates! I think I set the record for shortest time ever as a Foley partner … about two weeks!”

With his savings and a loan from his father, he started his own firm, Anderson Law Offices, which quickly became Anderson, St. Denis & Glenn. When Don St. Denis amicably left to form his own firm, the present AndersonGlenn, LLP came into existence.

During the first year of his firm, he often slept in his law office, and worked 10 or 12-hour days, seven days a week. At the end of the year, he was delightfully surprised when the firm was a financial success.

His background as a swimmer paid off well when he began defending swimming coaches and swim teams all over the country for USA Swimming. He also developed an expertise in boats, having managed to take a year of correspondence courses in Naval Architecture, in addition to his real-world experience and captain licenses. 

This paid off when Anderson defended Sea Ray Boats in a case involving a 46’ sport fisherman boat that burned, taking much of the marina with it.

 “No one thought the case could be won, Anderson said. “But I noted that a key piece of evidence, the shore power cord, had gone missing. I built my case around a spoliation argument plus blaming an ‘instant-on’ TV.”

He won, saving Sea Ray several million dollars. That began a 20-year run representing most of the major boat manufacturing industry. “I loved doing the boat work,” Anderson said. “For a while I was GC for Chris Craft, traveling to all these boat shows and defending them everywhere. It was heaven.”

Becoming the American Lawyer

“I’m pretty competitive,” he said. “When I swam at Duke, I did well (Team Captain, All-ACC), but nationally, I never did as well as my teammates from high school, including Olympic Gold Medalist (now attorney) Nancy Hogshead. Not reaching my goals in swimming made me even more competitive in the courtroom.”

He seems to have achieved what he wanted. Anderson, the rare attorney who does both plaintiff and defense, has never lost a plaintiff verdict in over 100  plaintiff cases spanning 40 years. “I’ve lost some defense cases … in fact I got my butt kicked over in Panama City on a first party insurance case handled by some fine counsel (Jason Peterson and Mike Schofield of Clark Partington) …but I have never had a jury reject me in a plaintiff case.”

Anderson holds board certifications in civil trial practice and business litigation with experience and recommendations in both admiralty and aviation law. “I’ve litigated in a lot of areas, but trying to keep up with the requirements of four board certifications is a bit much.”

He has tried jury trials in more than 12 states and at last count was approaching 200  first chair, court of general jurisdiction, jury trials.

“Over the years, at different times, I have been a commercial litigator, specializing in warranty law; a proctor in admiralty; and an aviation product liability specialist. My practice has always been client-driven … plus I get bored easily,” he jokes. “And for some reason, I seem to be a magnet for odd or unusual cases.”

He won his first $1 million verdict in 1985 at the age of 26 in the only case in history where a jury awarded damages for an injury from a defective microwave oven. “We proved the interlock for the door malfunctioned, but a lot of that was Charlie Howell. I did all the work-up and we split duties at trial.”

On the defense side, he and his partner, John Glenn, have represented Chrysler in its many corporate configurations, which brought its own share of weirdness. In one, the plaintiff insisted on towing her allegedly lemon LeBaron around the dealership by a team of mules, with a big lemon pained on the side! In another, the allegedly defective car caused the plaintiff “excessive flatulence” as a damage.

 

Gregory Andrew Anderson

Looking Ahead

“It was said by his many biographers that Architect Frank Lloyd Wright, who is another one of my heroes, said he had to be ‘constantly living on the edge,’ to produce his work; meaning he was the opposite of risk averse. I’m nowhere near that degree, but it does ring true to me in many ways. I’ve got a poster up at the office with the famous quote from Coach Vince Lombardi about giving it everything and it ends with, ‘…I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle, victorious.’”

That goes a long way toward explaining Kowalski.

He has no plans of retiring and says it would “drive him nuts” not to have a challenge. But his wife and partner, Jennifer, keeps pointing out that there is more than one way to challenge oneself. “She’s very persuasive and very stubborn once she makes up her mind. She usually wins these arguments.”

At a Glance

AndersonGlenn LLP
10751 Deerwood Park Blvd, Ste 105
Jacksonville, FL 32256
(904) 273-4734
asglaw.com

South Florida Office
2650 N Military Trl, Ste 430
Boca Raton, FL 33431

Practice Areas

  • Legal, Medical and Investment Malpractice
  • Products Liability
  • Aviation Law
  • Insurance Defense

Education

  • Juris Doctor, Nova Southeastern University College of Law, 1983
  • Bachelor of Arts, Duke University, 1981

Honors

  • Best Lawyers in America, 1990-Present
  • Highest Verdict Awards
  • Superlawyers 1992-Present
  • Award for Outstanding Practice, DaimlerChrysler Corp, 2007
  • Editor, Civil Trial Practice in Florida, 1994
  • Editor, Professional Liability of Lawyers in Florida, 1992
  • Chairman, Hospice Northeast, Young Professional Esprit, 1989-92
  • Chairperson MS Society Fundraising, 1988

Professional Associations

  • Jacksonville Bar Association
  • Southeastern Admiralty Law Institute
  • American Association for Justice
  • Florida Justice Association, Eagle Sponsor
  • Lawyer-Pilots Bar Association

Certifications

  • Florida Bar Certified Mediator, 2012
  • Florida Supreme Court Qualified Arbitrator
  • Board Certification in Civil Trial Practice,1991
  • Board Certification in Business Litigation, 1996

Hobbies

  • Sailing, Fly fishing, Boating, Guitar, Restoring Muscle Cars, Salt Water Aquariums, Scuba Diving, Bad Golf and Worse Tennis

Family

  • Wife, Jennifer Anderson, a partner at AndersonGlenn LLP; Daughter, Caroline, 24, finishing her doctorate in microbiology at MIT; Daughter, Annaliese, 13, an artist; and Son, Grayson, 10, a swimmer like his father

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