Hon. John D. Couriel

John D. Couriel is the 90th Justice of the Florida Supreme Court. Justice Couriel was born in Miami, Florida in 1978.  He is married to Rebecca L. Toonkel, M.D.  They have two children.

Justice Couriel received his A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard College in 2000 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2003.  He clerked for the Honorable John D. Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia before joining Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York.  His practice there included securities offerings, mergers and acquisitions, bankruptcy matters, and investigations.  In 2009, he became an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida.  He prosecuted hundreds of federal offenses, including international money laundering, public integrity, healthcare fraud, and human trafficking crimes.  In 2013, he joined Kobre & Kim LLP, where he specialized in cross-border disputes and investigations relating to financial products and services, asset recovery, and government enforcement defense, with an emphasis on clients in Latin America.

Justice Couriel is a native speaker of Spanish.  His parents emigrated from Cuba in the 1960s, his father as one of approximately 14,000 unaccompanied minors welcomed to the United States as part of Operation Pedro Pan.

He was appointed to the Florida Supreme Court by Governor Ron DeSantis on June 1, 2020.