Richard S. Powers esq.

Richard S. Powers Workers' Compensation Attorney for Law Offices Mario R. Arango P.A.

                            Richard S. Powers Esq.

Mr. Powers was born and raised in Miami, Florida. After graduating from Archbishop Curley High School in 1964, he attended the College of Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts and majored in French. He spent the summer after his junior year traveling abroad in Europe and studying French at a school in Pau, France while living with a local French family. After graduation from college in 1968, Mr. Powers returned to Miami and attended University of Miami Law School and joined Delta Theta Phi law fraternity. However, law school was interrupted by the War in Vietnam. After the first year of law school Mr. Powers enlisted in the Navy and served as a personnel man aboard a destroyer DD-763 William C. Law based in Jacksonville, Florida and as a French interpreter for the Navy at Mare Island, California. Later he attended Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island and Damage Control School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He served as a line officer aboard a cable repair ship ARC-2 Neptune for two years. After the decommissioning of his ship, Mr. Powers served in the Naval Reserves and subsequently received an honorable discharge. Mr. Powers returned to the University of Miami School of law and graduated in 1976. While in law school Mr. Powers clerked for a defense law firm on Miami Beach and worked in the law school library. In the last year of law school he was an intern with Legal Services of Greater Miami and specialized in civil litigation. After passing the Florida Bar Mr. Powers worked in a large law firm in Miami for 11 years and specialized in the defense of cases concerning general liability, products liability, and medical malpractice involving doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes. Mr. Powers then worked for two years in a small law firm in Ft. Lauderdale with a varied legal practice and he gained experience in probate estates, liability cases, domestic cases, and landlord-tenant cases. In 1990 Mr. Powers started working for a law firm in Miami specializing in workers’ compensation law. For five (5) years Mr. Powers spent his vacations in Costa Rica in a two week total immersion Spanish language program attending language school and living with a local family in San Jose, Costa Rica. Mr. Powers obtained a Masters Degree of Business Administration from Barry University and in 1994 he was admitted into Delta Mu Delta, the National Honorary Society in Business Administration. Mr. Powers also obtained a Master of Science Degree in Health Services Administration from Barry University. In the year 2000 Mr. Powers joined a law firm specializing in the defense of employers and carriers in workers’ compensation cases throughout the State of Florida. In 2013 Mr. Powers concentrated on representing only injured workers in workers' compensation and became of counsel to the law firm of Mario R. Arango P.A. as well as starting his own law firm. Mr. Powers obtained an LLM. in Elder Law from Stetson University College of Law in 2018. Throughout his years of practice he has regularly attended continuing legal education courses, seminars, and conferences in order to keep up with the latest developments in laws, rules, and judicial decisions.

Areas of Practice

Workers' compensation cases, appeals, social security disability cases, overtime cases, longshore cases, landlord-tenant cases, wills, probate estates, estate planning, guardianship's, appeals and elder law matters.

Professional Associations

Florida Bar Association

American  Bar Association

Dade County Bar Association  

United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida

United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida

United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Supreme Court of the United States

Florida Workers Advocates (FWA)

Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG)

National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA)

Academy of Florida Elder Law Attorneys (AFELA)

National Organization of Social Security Claimants’ Representatives

Legal Contributions

Panel on Staff Leasing at FWA Educational Conference - 2017

Trial Advocacy Competition Judge - 2018

Community Service

Knights of Columbus (Fourth Degree)

Catholic Lawyers Guild