Meet Ryan Yaffa: The Next Generation Redefining Advocacy

Ryan Yaffa’s career as a trial lawyer may seem predetermined. From childhood, his second home was the courtroom. The son of Andrew Yaffa, longtime partner at prominent plaintiffs’ medical malpractice and personal injury firm Grossman Roth Yaffa Cohen, Yaffa grew up in the firm he now practices with. It would seem only natural that Yaffa would follow in his father’s footsteps. “The firm has existed longer than I've been alive, and it's taken care of me,” he says.

Instead, his path was driven not by expectation, but by inspiration.

Yaffa has always been very intentional about his career path. He was never pushed to become a lawyer, he emphasizes; in fact, he very nearly pursued a different path entirely. Yaffa obtained his undergraduate degree in finance and interned at securities trading firm DRW Holdings, where he researched and analyzed financial trends associated with a variety of asset classes, including futures and options, exchanged on the Chicago Board of Trade.

While challenging, intriguing and lucrative, Yaffa could never shake the lifelong awe he felt watching the attorneys at GRYC fight for their clients. In addition to the countless mediations, depositions and trials he attended during his youth, he vividly remembers witnessing various claims bill hearings in college, watching the partners lobby the legislature to pass bills enabling their clients, victims of negligence and tragic injustices, to recover the compensation they deserve and need for long-term care. “The one thing I learned quickly was that no compensation could ever be sufficient to undo the harm already done,” he remembers. “Our lawyers were always willing to go the extra mile for any of our clients and fight for them until nothing more could be done.” So, he pivoted – devoting himself to the career that he felt would allow him to make a real impact on real people.

A lifelong Florida resident, Yaffa attended Florida State University for his undergraduate degree before attending the University of Miami School of Law. He clerked with GRYC practically all throughout law school and officially joined the firm as an associate in 2020, in the midst of a pandemic and on the brink of one of Florida’s greatest disasters in recent memory. In 2021, the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Fla., collapsed, killing 98 people and injuring many others. GRYC was co-lead counsel in the litigation, representing the hundreds of family members whose loved ones were killed or injured, as well as the residents who lost their homes. Yaffa handled the claims of multiple families, spearheading efforts to recover compensation for their tragic losses.

Currently, Yaffa is representing a woman who lost her right eye and became legally blind after using artificial tear drops contaminated with antibiotic-resistant bacteria. He and his team have brought suits on behalf of multiple claimants against several major healthcare companies, including a local medical center and insurance company who provided the drops, as well as the companies involved in importing and distributing the drops. Yaffa and his team are well-prepared; going up against several well-resourced corporations at once is a common occurrence for GRYC attorneys, who are experienced medical malpractice and product liability experts.

Yaffa, his team, and co-counsel also recently filed a class action against Family Dollar, claiming that the popular chain sold over-the-counter drugs at unsuitable temperatures, compromising the safety and efficacy of the drugs.

“What brought me to this area of the law is serving others and speaking for those who can't speak for themselves,” says Yaffa.

Lawdragon: Tell me about your early experience growing up with the firm. Why did you decide that a legal career was right for you?

Ryan Yaffa: I've been exposed to this firm, the clients and their cause for as long as I can remember. My dad wanted to be a doctor – his father was a general trauma surgeon, and my mom’s dad an orthopedic surgeon. My grandfather pushed my dad to forgo medical school and attend law school instead. Ironically, my dad went to law school to learn how to defend health care practitioners, like his father, against meritless and unjustified claims.… Well, that was the plan until he crossed paths with Stuart Grossman. As fate would have it, Stuart, both one of my father’s mentors and now mine, ended up deposing my grandfather, as non-party witness, in a plaintiff’s medical malpractice case. Notwithstanding the circumstances in which they met, Stuart and my grandfather hit it off, bonded over their passion for fishing and became lifelong friends. Ultimately, my dad clerked at Stuart’s law firm and it’s the only job he’s ever had. So, growing up, Stuart became his second father and mentor and Neal [Roth], another legal giant, played a significant role in his development as well. The firm has existed longer than I've been alive, and it's taken care of me.

My whole life I was exposed to the firm and its clients, witnessing the cases that were being litigated. I attended depositions and mediations, and would see the pain and suffering the clients were enduring. I saw the firm's devotion to improving their situation, making everlasting and meaningful changes on the policy side to prevent similar occurrences from ever happening again, and that was incredibly moving. I saw Stuart, Neal, Andy [Yaffa] and Gary [Cohen] catalyze real change in people's lives. There's nothing more fulfilling than that in this area of the law.

When someone's been wronged due to the negligence of another, we don't need any motivation to go out there and fight and hold those who are at fault accountable. So, what brought me to this area of the law is the opportunity to serve others and speak for those who can't speak for themselves. The ability to use the law in a righteous way to help others is a privilege, which I do not take lightly. But I do want to reiterate that I was never pushed to go to law school or pushed to become this type of attorney. Just seeing what my dad did on a daily basis made me immensely proud and it seemed like a worthy cause to devote myself to.

LD: And you were considering a career in finance, right?

RY: Yes, I majored in finance at Florida State. In college, I interned a few summers on the Chicago Board of Trade at a holdings company. I thought that I wanted to do that and received a job offer to leave college early, move straight to Chicago, and trade in the overseas markets. While it was a lucrative and intriguing opportunity, I talked it over with my family and decided to invest in my further development and attend law school instead. While that potential career checked a lot of my boxes, it didn’t seem that it was going to be as fulfilling as going down this path. Sitting behind a computer and doing math and trying to make a bunch of money is great, but you're not impacting people the same way that I am able to do here.

The ability to use the law in a righteous way to help others is a privilege, which I do not take lightly.

LD: Are there any cases that stand out as memorable in your mind?

RY: Champlain Towers is one that I will certainly never forget. Our firm took on multiple families together and made damage presentations, attempting to maximize each of our respective clients’ recovery.

LD: And you joined that case not long after law school, right?

RY: I graduated law school in 2020. I believe that the cases wrapped up at the end of 2022. So, I had only been practicing for a year and a half to two years – and obviously, it's one of the biggest tragedies that our country has seen, not just our local community. Being able to be involved in that litigation was eye-opening. There were tons of moving parts and parties involved, numerous theories of liability, tons of experts, a lot of work on the discovery end and catastrophic loss, whether it be property or human life across the board. Once a global recovery was made, we began damage presentations in front of the Honorable Judge Michael Hanzman for that entire summer, advocating for our clients while also keeping in mind that our non-clients and other people in our community had also lost loved ones. So, it was just an incredible learning experience – one that I'm fortunate to have been a part of – but very sorry that the tragedy occurred. I can't even begin to rattle off the lessons that I learned in litigating those cases and counseling those families. It was a privilege and honor to represent our clients and honor those that were lost, but very, very tough. There are no words.

LD: What was it like working on such a major case so early in your career?

RY: From a developmental point of view as a young attorney recently out of law school, the experience was invaluable. Coming out of law school, you're equipped with knowledge of the law. However, while that may be true, you are new to managing the litigation, asserting pressure points and pushing cases effectively. This is hard enough to do with even a single claimant. Watching the lawyers from our firm and the rest of the plaintiffs’ team lead the charge and maneuver all the legal obstacles that come about in a litigation of that magnitude was insightful on so many levels.

LD: And what does your overall practice look like now?

RY: Now, over four years in, I’m well diversified. I’ve handled cases involving medical malpractice, products liability, class actions, legal malpractice, premises liability, negligent security, automobile accidents, construction defects, sexual assault and rape, etcetera. While some categories may peak my interest more than others, the subject matter is immaterial. I’m committed to representing anyone who has suffered significant loss in any context if I believe in the merits of the case.

LD: What have you learned during your time at the firm about being a lawyer?

RY: Growing up, watching from a different vantage point, I was in awe of the skills GRYC’s lawyers possessed and doubted whether I was gifted enough to produce similar results. It’s called practicing law, so while I’m still humbled and in awe of my mentors on a regular basis, I’ve learned that there is no secret formula for success. Common sense and instincts go a long way. There's no substitution for preparation. And everyone's got to find their own style of being a lawyer. So just put your head down and do the work, trust your instincts, be yourself unapologetically and let it fly.