Kimberly L. Boldt is a board certified civil appellate lawyer and named partner at Ratzan Weissman & Boldt. Ms. Boldt has substantial experience in complex civil litigation and appeals in both state and federal court. Ms. Boldt’s practice focuses on the legal aspects of the cases she handles from inception, through discovery, at trial, and on appeal. “The best appellate lawyers are trial lawyers too,” says Boldt. Complex litigation requires an emphasis on the legal issues that shape the ultimate outcome of the case, and Ms. Boldt handles those legal issues in the select cases the firm litigates.
Ms. Boldt also works with other reputable trial firms. She is often hired by those firms to work on their cases leading up to and during trial. “Winning an important legal issue before trial can lead to a settlement or put the case in its best position in the event of a final appeal,” says Boldt. There is simply no substitute for complete preparation on every issue at every stage of the case, and this is the expertise Ms. Boldt brings to the table for her firm and the other firms with whom she works.
Ms. Boldt became board certified in civil appeals in 1998. She has been lead appellate counsel in more than one hundred appeals before the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, the Florida Supreme Court, and each of Florida’s five District Courts of Appeal.
Ms. Boldt has served as appellate counsel at trial in numerous jury trials, regularly attending trial and arguing legal issues that arise from motions in limine, to important evidentiary issues, to directed verdict, and jury instruction charge conferences. Kimberly and the other lawyers at the Boldt Law Firm, which she originally started in 2000, also work on cases and attend trials held in other states besides Florida. In those cases, trial lawyers rely on Ms. Boldt and her team to be familiar with the substantive and procedural law applicable to that case in that state. Ms. Boldt has litigated cases with her partners, Stuart Ratzan and Stuart Weissman, in Alabama, Rhode Island, California and Arkansas, where the Ratzan Weissman & Boldt team obtained a $46.5 million medical malpractice verdict – the largest ever in Arkansas – for a child who developed kernicterus (a catastrophic brain injury) after she was left untreated for jaundice as a newborn. Ms. Boldt was a part of another record-breaking case with the Ratzan, Weissman & Boldt team when they obtained a $23 million verdict in a medical malpractice case in Charlotte County, Florida – believed to be the largest jury verdict in the county’s history.
Ms. Boldt’s experience includes complex commercial disputes, medical malpractice, products liability, insurance bad faith, insurance coverage, class actions and cases involving catastrophic loss and wrongful death. Her reported appellate decisions (more than 100) address an array of legal issues in these categories and others.
Kimberly graduated from Liberty University in 1988 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Journalism. She then attended the University of Miami, School of Law, graduating and becoming a member of The Florida Bar in 1992. She is married to Charles Cartwright, who she met in law school, and has a 16-year-old son.
