Chris Hoyer, along with his wife Judy, and Bill James had formerly worked together as federal prosecutors in central Florida. They had collaborated with FBI agents to win convictions for white-collar fraud, organized crime and political corruption. In the new firm, formed in 1993 with attorney John Newcomer and several retired FBI agents, they applied some of the same working methods.

The firm was only a few months old when a former agent for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company arrived at their door with a complaint. He said the nation's largest insurance company had used fraudulent tactics to sell nurses life insurance policies disguised as annuity investments. The allegations led the lawyers to file a class-action lawsuit accusing MetLife of deceptive sales practices. There was no precedent for such a complaint against an insurance company of MetLife's size and reputation, Chris Hoyer recalled. Other class-action firms looked at us with amusement, Hoyer said. We had a lot of self-doubt because it was hard to believe what had been going on at MetLife. Evidence continued to mount as the lawyers pursued the case. In 1994 MetLife agreed to make full refunds of up to $76-million to 60,000 customers. The insurance company also agreed to pay a record $20-million fine to insurance regulators across the country.

The MetLife case prompted scrutiny of the sales practices of the nation's entire insurance industry. The firm subsequently brought suit against numerous other insurance companies, including Prudential, John Hancock, and State Farm. Since 1994, James, Hoyer and its collaborating law firms have negotiated settlements returning more than $3.2-billion to victims of fraud nationwide. Central to the firm's practice is the belief that even relatively small consumer frauds -- in which an individual's damages are a few hundred dollars or less -- can be effectively remedied through class-action litigation. In 1998 James, Hoyer grew substantially when it merged with a group of lawyers experienced in the representation of insurance companies. These lawyers, Terry Smiljanich, John Yanchunis, now practice exclusively on behalf of the victims of fraud but with the keen insight gained from their experience and knowledge of the insurance industry. In June 2000, James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich, P.A. along with its co-counsel negotiated a $215-million class-action settlement with insurer American General Corp., on behalf of thousands of African-American customers who were systematically overcharged for small burial policies on the basis of race.

Critical to the firm's success is its reliance on experienced investigators -- four retired FBI agents, a retired sheriff's detective, and two former investigative journalists from print and television -- who document fraud. Our attorney/investigator ratio is unique, Hoyer said. All the investigators understand the exact context of what we're doing, and they're the best in the business.

Currently, the firm's cases extend far beyond insurance matters to encompass many areas of consumer fraud and product liability. The firm has a class-action suit pending against Brink's Home Security for overcharging customers for taxes associated with their alarm systems. The firm sued the Carson hair-care products conglomerate on behalf of African-American women whose hair fell out after using a relaxer. In February 2000 the firm sued General Electric Co. for civil racketeering, relating to GE's recall of dishwashers that sometimes caught fire. GE fraudulently used the recall as a springboard to sell consumers newer and more expensive GE dishwashers.

James, Hoyer also has substantial experience representing whistleblowers who have disclosed fraud and seek the return of misappropriated government funds. In such actions, also called qui tam actions, the whistleblower is eligible to receive a portion of the amount recovered. The firm represented the first whistleblowers in the Columbia/HCA Medicare fraud case, which gained national attention and involved the misappropriation of millions of taxpayer dollars. The firm also exposed widespread fraud involving government-insured prescriptions at two of the nation's largest drugstore chains, Walgreens and Eckerd.

The path taken by James, Hoyer, Newcomer, Smiljanich & Yanchunis, P.A. has not been an obvious one, in that there was little precedent for class-action fraud litigation. We took enormous risks that other people wouldn't take, Hoyer said about the firm's first years. An October 2000 story in the St. Petersburg Times called James, Hoyer, Newcomer & Smiljanich. P.A. one of Tampa's most successful law firms.

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