A boutique South Florida trial firm — by deliberate choice.

Maria Sterling and David Reyes met at the Miami-Dade Public Defender’s office in 2009. They tried cases against each other, with each other, and watched what happens when a personal injury client walks into a firm that quietly carries 800 open files: their case becomes a spreadsheet row.

In 2015 they opened Sterling & Reyes with a single operating rule: a hard cap of 90 active files at any time, two senior trial attorneys on every case, and zero subcontracting of work to outside firms. No case manager would touch a client’s file before a partner did. No screener would gate the first call. No junior associate would appear at mediation in a partner’s place.

Nine years later that rule is intact. The firm has recovered more than $47 million for clients across Miami-Dade, Broward, and the Florida Keys, with a 94% resolution rate over the last 24 months. One paralegal, one investigator, three attorneys, and a deliberately empty waiting room. The math still works.

Sterling & Reyes does not advertise on billboards, does not run late-night television, and does not take referral fees. Every new client arrives either by direct call, by another attorney’s referral, or by a former client telling a neighbor what the firm actually did for them.