Robert M. Austin is a founder and senior partner at Austin & Laurato, P.A. Mr. Austin was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1985. In his over 25 years of practice, Mr. Austin has wide-ranging trial experience and has collectively garnered multi-millions of dollars in settlements against insurance companies for his clients, in all types of insurance claims, including wind, fire, theft, water, and sinkhole claims. Since early 2001, Mr. Austin has focused his first-party insurance practice on sinkhole litigation and coverage, making him one of the most experienced sinkhole lawyers in the state.
Mr. Austin was born in rural Georgia, the son of a cattle, cotton, and tobacco farmer. Early on, Mr. Austin learned the value of hard work. It is that principle of hard work learned in the cattle pastures that Mr. Austin has applied to his over two decades practicing law. After graduating from Cumberland Law School in Birmingham, Alabama and in the twenty plus years that followed, Mr. Austin has handled complex construction disputes, large catastrophyic personal injury claims, and nearly every type of insurance dispute, always fighting on the side of the policyholder against the insurance company.
Mr. Austin prides himself on representing clients against insurance companies in sinkhole claims, where he is widely regarded as having a mastery of the complex scientific and geological principles involved in litigating sinkhole claims throughout Florida. Because of his longstanding representation of clients in sinkhole matters, his relentless approach to the science behind these claims, and his rural Georgia upbringing raising cattle, he has gained the nickname among some of his clients as the “Sinkhole Cowboy.”
Email Robert Austin at raustin@austinlaurato.com.