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About
About Attorney David S. Wieder
A Miami Based and AV Rated by Martindale-Hubbell Attorney
Born in New York City, David Wieder started first grade in Miami Beach at North Beach Elementary, went to Nautilus Junior High and graduated from Miami Beach Senior High, making him a true native Floridian.
Raised as a child of Miami pioneer hotel business parents, he traveled between upstate New York and Miami twice a year, following his winter-in-Miami and summer-in-New York parents. He loves Miami and its way of life, as well as the cultural diversity that has enveloped the city.
“Miami is a very different place than when I grew up. It has changed to a world class city,” he says. Not only that, it is a destination for the world.
After graduating from the University of Miami , he traveled “up east” to graduate from New England Law in Boston, Massachusetts.. After finishing law school, Wieder lived in Paris for a while with his French-born wife, Catherine, learning to speak French. “A wonderful experience,” he says, but then, deciding to live in New York City again, he got his first job in Manhattan, joining the legal staff of Hartford Insurance and gaining valuable court work experience and learning how to function as a trial lawyer. He worked a few blocks from the twin towers of the World Trade Center, watching them go up. Recently, he visited the 9/11 memorial and was taken by the immensity and scope of the museum. It is a place we all should visit as Americans to appreciate all those who gave their lives and were the victims of terrorism.
Just after his daughter’s birth, the “sand in his shoes” itched mightily and he decided to move back to Florida and hang out a shingle as a sole practitioner. For over 40 years he has been successfully handling and trying personal injury and commercial cases, resulting in millions of dollars in settlements and million dollar verdicts for victims of injuries, medical negligence, and other civil torts. Wieder is a member of the New York and Florida Bars, the United States District Court trial bar, the American Bar Association, The American Association for Justice, the Dade County Bar Association, the Florida Justice Association, the Dade County Trial Lawyers Association, and the National Association of Personal Injury Lawyers. www.napil.com. Wieder enjoys explaining the facts to juries and judges, helping people and solving problems, using his extensive knowledge of people and their needs.
Wieder has served on several Florida Bar committees, including an Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee, the function of which is to guard the public from unscrupulous people who claim to be lawyers but are not. He has also served on and chaired a Florida Bar Grievance Committee, which deliberated on whether to discipline and seek to disbar attorneys who have violated their public and professional trust. He holds two certificates of meritorious public service from the Florida Bar and one from the Dade County Bar Association. Mr. Wieder also served as chairman of the City of Miami Beach debarment (nothing to do with lawyers) committee, a quasi-judicial committee that determines whether contractors can continue to be eligible to bid on city projects, based on past improper conduct or criminality. The board meets on the initiative of the city attorney. Wieder was appointed to the board by a city commissioner. Wieder also chaired the Dade County Bar Association Mediation Committee and served on the Civil Litigation Committee as well. Wieder is “of counsel” to the prestigious Miami litigation boutique of Hermeleelaw, which has a long and distinguished client list.
He represented Lufthansa German Airlines for 17 years doing aviation cases and has experience in commercial litigation and all phases of civil trial practice, including cases against stockbrokers who have taken advantage of their customers. Wieder also served as treasurer of the American Jewish Committee, a human relations organization, that betters human understanding among diverse groups of people and which has monitored the continuing crisis in the middle east. He chaired the Historic Preservation Board of the City of Miami Beach, dedicated to preventing the destruction of cherished historical buildings and the historic districts of the city. He was appointed by the full Miami Beach City Commission and reappointed twice thereafter, and is considered a valuable member of the board by all those with whom he serves, respected by developers and preservationists as well. After six years of service he was “termed out,” and now has served his city on two boards for twelve years. He recently ran a valiant campaign for Mayor of the City of Miami Beach, fighting vested interests and influence peddlers and an administration that had been tainted by scandal. However, he was outspent by a multimillionaire mayor who financed his own campaign. Being outspent 40 to 1,($39,000 to $1,600,000) Wieder still garnered almost 40% of the vote. He is respected as a community leader and cited in numerous articles about his efforts against big money interests. Now he serves on the City of Miami Beach Planning Board. " I like to give back to the community that has been so good to me."
Wieder is AV rated (preeminent) by Martindale-Hubbell, the highest rating obtainable by an attorney, since it is obtained only through the recognition of peers and judges. “It is a particularly fine honor to be rated so well by my colleagues,” he says. “I enjoy living up to people’s trust. I genuinely like to help people and make a difference in their lives.”
Wieder has two grown children: a son who is a television executive in Los Angeles, who has a son himself, and a daughter, a lawyer, who has given him three grandsons, none of whom, Wieder asserts, will be the next Roger Federer, since “athletic genes in the family are somewhat sparse.”