John Ruiz

Ruiz was born in the Miami area in 1967 to Cuban immigrant parents. He was the first in his family to go to college and the first to attend law school.⁠[1][1][2]

In 1987 Ruiz earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Miami; in 1991 he earned a law degree (JD) from Nova Southeastern University in Davie, Broward County.⁠[1][2]

After becoming a lawyer, Ruiz mainly represented plaintiffs, handling personal injury cases, class actions and mass torts; his practice also covered multidistrict litigation (MDL), medical malpractice, product liability, real estate and aviation disaster cases. His firm was La Ley con John H. Ruiz, P.A., which later practiced as MSP Recovery Law Firm; he also hosted the Spanish-language television program “La Ley,” offering legal and financial advice, which made him well known among Spanish-speaking audiences in Miami.⁠[1][3][4]

Beginning in 1996, Ruiz filed class actions on behalf of more than 30,000 Miami-Dade County residents against the Florida Department of Agriculture, which under its citrus canker eradication program had entered private homes and cut down citrus trees without compensation; the case was ultimately certified as a class action, and the department compensated all class members directly. In 2001 he represented consumers in a class action against Firestone over its tires.⁠[3][3][3]

Besides practicing law, he also acquired real estate and ran a number of businesses in fields including law, media, aviation and manufacturing.⁠[1][3]

In 2011 the Florida Supreme Court, at the request of The Florida Bar, issued Ruiz a public reprimand. The discipline concerned his conduct in a lawsuit brought by a person who in 2003 fell at an apartment project he co-owned.⁠[1]

In 2014 Ruiz and fellow lawyer Frank Quesada founded MSP Recovery, and he has been its chief executive officer since its inception. The business rests on the federal Medicare Secondary Payer Act: when a Medicare beneficiary needs care after a car accident or similar event and another insurer, such as auto insurance or workers’ compensation, should pay as the primary payer, the costs Medicare fronts must be reimbursed by the primary payer. MSP Recovery takes assignments of claims from insurers and health care providers, uses data matching to find wrongly paid medical costs, and then pursues reimbursement from the responsible party as assignee.⁠[1][3][1][1]

Ruiz has recalled that the idea for MSP came while he was litigating large class actions: he realized that health insurers were using the wrong laws to try to recover large sums lost through improper payments, and that they lacked the ability to identify those improper payments.⁠[1][1]

At the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Ruiz led the legal strategy in the company’s win in MSP Recovery Claims, Series LLC v. ACE Am. Ins. Co. (2020), and led the company’s participation in other cases under the law, including Humana Med. Plan, Inc. v. W. Heritage Ins. Co. (2016) and MSP Recovery, LLC v. Allstate Ins. Co. (2016). He was also named a 2019 “Florida Trailblazer” by the Daily Business Review for bringing data analytics into the practice of law.⁠[3][3][3]

In 2020 Ruiz bought a roughly 2.2-acre mansion in Gables Estates, a gated waterfront community in Coral Gables, from Leon Medical Centers founder Benjamin Leon Jr. and made it his home; the price was $46 million (another account puts it at $49 million), at the time the second-highest single-family home sale in Miami-Dade County.⁠[5][6][6]

He then bought and sold property in the same community repeatedly: a neighboring house bought for $25 million in 2021 was sold for $30 million in January 2023, and a teardown bought for $22 million in October 2022 was sold for $27.5 million in May 2023.⁠[6][6]

Ruiz has said he has been a boating enthusiast since his youth, and he became a customer of speedboat maker Cigarette Racing Team in 2002. He met Lionheart Capital founder Ophir Sternberg while buying real estate, and in 2021 the two teamed up to buy the private company.⁠[1][1][1]

On July 12, 2021, Lionheart Acquisition Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by Sternberg, announced a merger agreement with MSP Recovery that gave the combined company a pro forma enterprise value of about $32.6 billion, placing it among the three largest SPAC transactions ever; Ruiz was to lead the combined company, which planned to list on Nasdaq under the ticker MSPR. Ruiz said the company would recover improper payments through “a multi-faceted legal strategy and big data platform,” adding, “Our tools help fix this broken system.”⁠[7][7][7][7][7]

At that valuation, Ruiz, with a stake of about 65%, would have been worth about $21 billion on paper. The deal drew skepticism: MSP had zero net revenue that year and lost $37 million, and it had not yet seen claims through to settlement or the end of litigation.⁠[1][1][1]

While the merger was still pending, Ruiz acquired a personal health information tool called LifeWallet and in January 2022 launched the LifeWallet platform, designed to locate and organize users’ medical records for access by first responders and health care providers. He later ended up in litigation with LifeWallet’s original creator.⁠[1][8][1]

On May 23, 2022, the merger closed: Lionheart Acquisition Corp. II was renamed MSP Recovery, Inc. and adopted an Up-C structure, with Ruiz signing as the representative of MSP’s members. After the listing, the market quickly erased much of the company’s presumed value; two days later Ruiz, Sternberg and chief legal officer Quesada nonetheless rang the Nasdaq opening bell in New York, and Ruiz called it the “first day of a new chapter in MSP.”⁠[8][8][8][1][1][1]

After college athletes became legally able to earn name, image and likeness (NIL) income in 2021, Ruiz and his companies signed University of Miami athletes on a large scale, including quarterback Tyler Van Dyke and basketball twins Haley and Hanna Cavinder, who transferred from Fresno State; a two-year deal worth a total of $800,000 for basketball player Nijel Pack was announced in 2022. Ruiz told The Athletic in 2023 that he had 160 to 165 athletes under contract with NIL deals totaling $12 million to $14 million.⁠[9][1][1][2][1]

In 2023 the University of Miami women’s basketball team reached the Elite Eight and the men’s team the Final Four. Sports lawyer Darren Heitner, who helped draft Florida’s NIL law, considers that Ruiz’s public approach prompted other businesspeople to sign athletes and that the overall effect was “a net positive.” Ruiz also sued the state high school athletic association on behalf of a Westminster Christian School baseball player to force it to allow high school athletes to sign endorsement deals.⁠[1][1][1][1]

On August 11, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened an investigation of MSP Recovery, requesting documents on the Lionheart merger, historical and projected financial results, investor agreements, and data analytics platforms and algorithms; it followed with subpoenas on March 1, May 10 and August 16, 2023, covering the company’s projections, the accounting and valuation of assets underlying the financial statements that required restatement, funding sources before the merger, and public statements made in connection with and after the merger. In June and July 2025, four company officers also received SEC subpoenas.⁠[4][4][4][4][10]

On March 10, 2023, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida also subpoenaed the company in connection with a grand jury investigation, seeking materials on the company’s proprietary algorithms and software for identifying recoverable claims, the drop in its stock price after the merger, and marketing materials and investment agreements presented to potential investors; on July 18, 2024, it issued another subpoena concerning a company press release. The company said that, to the best of its knowledge, the Department of Justice had not issued target letters to anyone associated with the company, and that it had cooperated fully.⁠[4][4][4][4]

In January 2023 MSP Recovery began operating under the LifeWallet name (its legal name remained MSP Recovery, Inc.), and its stock traded on Nasdaq under the ticker LIFW.⁠[2][11][11]

In 2022, before the Cavinder twins joined the University of Miami, Ruiz posted on social media a photo of himself with the two at his home. On February 24, 2023, the NCAA Division I Committee on Infractions released a negotiated resolution with the university and women’s basketball head coach Katie Meier: between April 7 and 13, 2022, the head coach and an assistant coach facilitated impermissible off-campus contact between two prospects and their parents and a booster, and the prospects and their parents had dinner at the booster’s home, constituting a recruiting violation and an impermissible inducement; NIL opportunities were not discussed during the dinner. The NCAA documents do not name the booster, who was Ruiz.⁠[1][12][13][12][1]

The penalties: the head coach served a three-game suspension, and the university was placed on one year of probation (February 24, 2023, to February 23, 2024) and fined $5,000 plus 1% of the women’s basketball budget; Ruiz and the Cavinder twins themselves were not penalized. The case is often described as the first NIL penalty, but the sanction was for impermissible contact between a booster and recruits, not for an endorsement deal.⁠[13][1][1][1]

In March 2023 the company said it could not file its 2022 annual report on time. On April 14 its audit committee concluded that the financial statements for the second and third quarters of 2022 required restatement and should no longer be relied upon: in valuing certain assets acquired in the merger, the company had used the closing price on the day before the merger rather than the opening price after it closed, and rights to net proceeds from certain claims should have been consolidated. The company also identified material weaknesses in internal controls related to accounting for complex transactions.⁠[1][14][14][14][14]

The 2023 ForbesForbesForbes is an American business media brand that began with Forbes magazine, founded by B.C. Forbes in 1917. It is known for rankings such as the Forbes 400, the World’s Billionaires list and 30 Under 30, and operates Forbes.com, ForbesLive events and licensed editions in 81 countries. Since 2014 a majority stake has been held by the Hong Kong investment group Integrated Whale Media; a 2021 plan to list on the New York Stock Exchange through a special purpose acquisition company was terminated in 2022. It is headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey.Open the full entry billionaires list estimated Ruiz’s net worth at $1.5 billion (as of April 4, 2023), with health care services as the source of wealth and classified as self-made. By mid-March 2024, the market value of his stake in the company was about $85 million.⁠[2][2][1]

On August 10, 2023, MSP Recovery sued Cano Health, a primary care company that had assigned claims to it, in the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, seeking declaratory relief and alleging anticipatory breach; the same day Cano Health sued MSP Recovery in the same court, alleging fraud in the inducement, breach of contract, tortious interference and unjust enrichment, and called MSP a “sham.” Cano Health filed for bankruptcy protection on February 4, 2024, which stayed the litigation; after its reorganization plan took effect in June 2024, the litigation resumed.⁠[4][4][1][4][4]

The company’s stock fell below $1 and Nasdaq threatened to delist it. In October 2023, with the stock trading at about 7 cents, the company carried out a 1-for-25 reverse stock split effective October 12, reducing Class A common shares outstanding from about 335 million to about 13.4 million. When marketing the deal in 2021, the company had projected 2023 revenue of $963 million and profit of $632 million; in the first nine months of 2023 it actually lost $609 million, with claim recoveries of only $6.1 million.⁠[1][15][15][1][1]

On November 15, 2024, the company carried out a second 1-for-25 reverse stock split. From December 9 it consolidated all lines of business under the MSP Recovery brand, and its ticker reverted to MSPR.⁠[16][16][17]

On April 4, 2025, the company signed a restructuring term sheet with its main funders Virage and Hazel as well as Ruiz, Quesada and their law firms: in exchange for a 43% equity interest in the company, Virage would waive all claims and release all liens relating to its return entitlement against the company (about $1.1 billion as of the end of 2024); Ruiz and Quesada agreed to convert all of the roughly $144 million the company owed them into Class A common stock, and additional collateral and personal guaranties from them were a condition of bridge funding. Because the transaction involved conflicts of interest for Ruiz and Quesada, the board formed an independent committee to review it.⁠[4][4][4][4][4][4][4]

As of June 13, 2025, Ruiz beneficially owned 38.53% of the company’s Class A common stock.⁠[3]

In late September 2025, Brickell Key Investments, a Miami investment firm and one of the company’s earliest funders, sued Ruiz and Quesada, alleging that the two misstated their ownership of $36 million worth of shares they pledged in September 2022 as collateral to reduce $140 million the company owed the firm; the plaintiff seeks $63 million in outstanding debt and $36 million in damages. As of October 2026, no judgment or settlement in the case had been found.⁠[9][9][9]

On September 1, 2025, the company carried out a 1-for-7 reverse stock split, reducing Class A common shares outstanding from about 7.2 million to about 1.0 million.⁠[18][18][18]

On December 5, 2025, the SEC staff informed MSP Recovery by letter that it had concluded its investigation of more than three years and did not intend to recommend enforcement action to the Commission against the company, Ruiz or its other officers. Ruiz said, “From day one, MSP Recovery cooperated fully with regulators and let the facts speak for themselves.” The company did not comment on the status of the federal grand jury investigation.⁠[9][19][19][9]

In October 2025 Nasdaq issued a delisting determination because the company’s stockholders’ equity at the end of 2024 was below $2.5 million, and in November it added a further basis after the stock closed below $1 for 30 consecutive business days; on December 5 the stock closed at $0.32. On December 18 a hearings panel denied the company’s appeal, and the stock was suspended from Nasdaq at the open on December 22, after which it traded over the counter on the OTCQB market under the ticker MSPR. The same day, as part of liquidity management and restructuring, the company furloughed seven employees, about one-third of its workforce.⁠[20][20][20][9][20][20][21][21]

In February 2026 Ruiz listed his waterfront Gables Estates mansion for sale at $175 million, nearly four times the purchase price, making it at the time the second most expensive listing in Miami-Dade County. Built in 2017 and expanded in 2022 to a design by architect Cesar Molina, the house has nearly 15,000 square feet, 10 bedrooms and about 335 feet of water frontage.⁠[5][5][5][5][5]

On February 13, 2026, director Ophir Sternberg stepped down from the board, and on February 17 the chief financial officer resigned. On March 31 the company notified the SEC that it could not file its 2025 annual report on time: it faced severe liquidity constraints and relied on loans to fund operations, its auditor Baker Tilly had not completed the audit because the company could not pay for the remaining audit work, and it was evaluating financing and reorganization alternatives, including a potential restructuring.⁠[22][22][23][23]

Because it had not filed its 2025 annual report or its first-quarter 2026 report, the company’s stock moved to the OTC Expert Market, which allows only unsolicited quotes, from July 17, 2026. On August 26 Ruiz, as chief executive officer, signed a notice that the company also could not file its second-quarter 2026 report on time. The company kept operating on small discretionary advances from its lender Hazel, with several loans of tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in September 2026 alone; in late September two more directors resigned. As of October 2026, Ruiz remained chief executive officer.⁠[24][24][25][25][26][26][26]

On February 23, 2026, the YouTubeYouTubeYouTube is Google’s video-sharing and creator platform, founded in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim and acquired by Google in 2006. Built around video uploading, viewing, and creator earnings, the platform has developed Shorts, YouTube Music, Premium, YouTube TV, and products for children, and is headquartered in San Bruno, California, United States.Open the full entry channel School of Hard KnocksSchool of Hard KnocksSchool of Hard Knocks is a business-interview media brand founded in 2021 by James Dumoulin, Jack Dumoulin and Joshua Smith, based in Austin, Texas. Its street interviews, long-form videos and podcast explore guests’ careers and business experiences. It also operates content services and the School of Mentors community.Open the full entry released an interview video filmed in Miami, in which the host interviewed Ruiz at his Gables Estates home. Ruiz said in the interview that his father came to the United States from Cuba and was once homeless, and that he was the first in his family to go to college; after law school he went straight into opening his own firm and, unable to pay rent at first, gave hours of work in place of rent.⁠[27][27][27]

He said he bought the house for $46 million and has since invested about another $20 million in it, and that homes in the neighborhood are currently worth about $175 million; he said he sleeps at most three and a half to four hours a night, does not drink or take drugs, and answers everyone’s text messages even when he wakes at 3 or 4 a.m.⁠[27][27][27][27]

Ruiz has given millions of dollars to his alma mater the University of Miami, Westminster Christian Academy and other causes, and in 2021 he gave $1 million to victims of the Surfside condominium collapse. He pledged to build the University of Miami football team a new stadium, a plan that as of December 2025 had not come to fruition.⁠[1][1][9]

“It takes the same effort to make $1 than it does to make 100 million.” He said the rules and laws are the same, just on a bigger platform, and that dealing with people already at that level is often easier because they understand the rules and move quickly (at 10:01 in the video).⁠[27][27]

“You have to be available.” He said that if people call you and you do not respond, things will not work out; he responds to every text message (at 11:13 in the video).⁠[27][27]

“You got to believe in yourself, and don’t listen to the noise.” He said that every time he has built a successful business, everyone told him it would not work, and that if you do not believe in yourself, nobody else will (at 11:45 in the video).⁠[27][27][27]

“You got to make the other person understand why what you have is valuable to them, not valuable to you.” This was his negotiating advice for entrepreneurs: when the other side understands that they need you and you do not need them, you will make the best deal (at 13:47 in the video).⁠[27][27]

“It’s not about how great you are one day; you got to do it every day.” He said his father taught him this, and that he wakes up every day with the same goal in mind: to execute (at 14:04 in the video).⁠[27][27][27]

MSP Recovery: Official website: https://www.msprecovery.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[19]