Angel A. Cortiñas

Angel A. Cortiñas is an American lawyer and judge on the Florida Third District Court of Appeal. Angel A. Cortiñas is a shareholder and co-chair of the firm’s Appellate practice group. He is also a member of the firm’s Women’s Leadership Forum. Angel served as an appellate judge on Florida’s 3rd District Court of Appeal for more than 8 years. He reviewed civil and criminal appeals from trial courts, authoring over 500 appellate opinions. He also served as a trial judge, by Florida Supreme Court appointment, on civil and criminal jury trials.
Prior to his judicial tenure, Angel worked for 13 years as a federal prosecutor and was the lead trial attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s investigation and successful prosecution of Columbia HCA and Olsten Corporation, which was the largest fraud case in U.S. history and the most comprehensive health care fraud investigation ever undertaken by the federal government.
As the former chief of the Fraud Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami, he supervised twenty prosecutors and oversaw all criminal fraud investigations and prosecutions involving corporate and securities fraud, bank fraud, health care fraud, computer crimes, tax fraud and other white collar offenses. He also worked in and oversaw the Health Care Fraud Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Miami for many years, working closely with hospitals, as well as with state and federal regulators.
Angel has tried over 30 jury trials to verdict in federal court and coordinated over 100 complex grand jury investigations. He has also authored numerous appellate briefs and argued before the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

He was born in Havana, Cuba in 1962. He attended Miami Senior High School. He was admitted to Brown University and graduated magna cum laude with degrees in Latin American Studies and Political Science in 1984. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He subsequently received his JD cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1987.

From 1987 to 1988, he worked as a Law Clerk for Judge William M. Hoeveler of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. He then worked as an associate for the now defunct Steel Hector & Davis.

Between 1990-1994 and 1995–2003, he served with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida as an Assistant United States Attorney.

He has served as a district court judge since 2005.

He has taught as an adjunct professor at Florida International University College of Law and University of Miami School of Law.