Born in Havana, Cuba, Ferrer escaped Fidel Castro's communist regime with his family by moving to the US. Growing up in Miami with a passionate interest in law enforcement, he became one of the youngest police officers in the state at 19 years old. He began his law practice in Miami focusing on civil litigation, working on hundreds of suits involving medical malpractice, wrongful deaths, personal injuries, and commercial business disputes.

In 1995, he was elected judge at the age of 34, making him the youngest Circuit Court judge in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, where he served as a family and criminal division judge for ten years. Throughout his high-profile tenure on the bench in the fourth largest court system in the country, he handled thousands of cases ranging from first-degree murders, drug-related offenses, RICO conspiracy indictments, kidnappings, and armed robberies to child custody and support issues, general financial matters, and adoption and paternity suits.

Ferrer is a member of the Florida and District of Columbia Bars and has served as an adjunct professor at Florida International University, teaching graduate courses in criminal law and procedure. He continues to teach media relations and closing arguments to other judges at judicial conferences held throughout the year, as well as at the New Judges College and the College of Advanced Judicial Studies. Ferrer has also authored a "bench book" on closing arguments that is used by judges throughout Florida. He is regularly interviewed by media to provide expert opinions on a number of legal issues.

In engaging keynotes, Judge Alex Ferrer inspires audiences to believe in the power of education and perseverance by recounting how he successfully pursued the “American Dream” after being uprooted from his native Cuba.

Ferrer received his Juris Doctorate degree from the University of Miami School of Law, where he became a published member of its Law Review. Read Less ^