Stuart L. Hartstone, Deputy Director of Litigation
Stuart L. Hartstone is the Deputy Director of Litigation at Pike & Lustig, LLP.
Prior to joining Pike & Lustig, Stuart served as the Senior Supervising Trial Court Law Clerk for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit. Over the course of his five-year tenure with the Circuit Court, Stuart trained and supervised dozens of judicial law clerks/staff attorneys, administered the Circuit Court’s Criminal Appellate Division, and drafted a myriad of trial and postconviction court orders, appellate briefs, and legal memoranda. Stuart’s experience is highly valuable to clients of the firm facing allegations of white-collar crime and other sophisticated business claims.
Stuart is part of the firm’s complex-commercial litigation division, where he applies his knowledge representing individuals and entities accused of quasi-criminal conduct in the civil divisions of Florida’s state and federal courts, including patient brokering, anti-kickback violations, FDUTPA claims, civil RICO claims, False Claims Act violations, allegations of fraud, and other causes of action.
Stuart earned his law degree from Florida International University College of Law in 2010 and began his career in Miami helping launch the Florida Capital Resource Center (“FCRC”), a nonprofit organization dedicated to the defense and mitigation of death penalty cases. Serving as Acting Executive Director, Stuart drafted proposed legislation concerning the death penalty, provided litigation support to capital defense attorneys, and organized CLE training opportunities around the State.
Simultaneously, Stuart also served as a part-time associate at FCRC founder Terence Lenamon’s law firm, Lenamon Law, PLLC, where Stuart had the opportunity to join the defense team in several high-profile trials, including two death penalty trials to verdict.
During this time, Stuart also gained significant appellate experience, drafting amicus curiae briefs in support of impact litigation both in Florida’s appellate courts and the Supreme Court of the United States, including one brief filed on behalf of retired Florida circuit court judges in Hurst v. Florida, 577 U.S. 92 (2016), where the Supreme Court ultimately found Florida’s (previous) death penalty statute unconstitutional.
Stuart briefly continued his work at the Florida Center for Capital Representation at Florida International University College of Law, until the fall of 2015, when Stuart joined the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit as a Senior Trial Court Law Clerk where he spent the next five years serving the circuit court judges of Palm Beach County.
Stuart is a member of The Florida Bar, The Massachusetts Bar, and The Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States.
