Insurance Disputes
Our lawyers have served as counsel to major U.S. property and casualty insurers, reinsurers, and policyholders in disputes arising out of a variety of claims, ranging from environmental, mass tort and other long-tail claims to more specialized claims, such as directors and officers liability, other professional liability, errors and omissions and business interruption.
We provide counsel on national trial coordination, claims and coverage positions, including all aspects of liabilities facing clients. Additionally, we develop and coordinate national positions on key policy and treaty language, work with underwriters on policy, certificate and treaty wording and analyze insurance and reinsurance law nationally and internationally. We possess particular experience in the London Market and Bermuda programs. In addition, our lawyers regularly act as arbitrators and mediators in complex coverage and claims arbitration hearings, and in both domestic and international arbitration proceedings.
We have handled lawsuits involving claims by commercial policyholders involving the full range of coverage issues under liability policies, including trigger theories, commercial, own-product, and sistership exclusions, allocations among multiple carriers, and duties between primary and excess carriers. We have been involved in recent litigation to determine whether several forms of intellectual property misappropriation, including patent, trademark, and copyright infringement and common-law unfair competition torts, are within various forms of advertising injury coverage.
We represent insurance companies that underwrite fidelity insurance against employee dishonesty and other risks encountered in brokerage, banking, and other financial services businesses. In addition, our lawyers have handled large, complex claims brought by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as assignee of the banker's blanket bond of several major banks. Further, we have pursued subrogation and indemnity rights against third parties on behalf of our clients.
CLASS ACTIONS ~ Our Insurance Industry Group includes attorneys with extensive experience in the defense of a wide variety of class action lawsuits in state and federal courts throughout the United States. We have represented clients in numerous industries, including insurance, automotive, banking and financial institutions, consumer products, construction and construction materials, fine paper, food products, healthcare, household furniture, information technology training, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, professional accounting, retail, securities, and telecommunications. We are currently representing the nation's largest automobile insurer in a major class action challenging the company's policy on replacement auto parts.
Our lawyers have successfully obtained pre-certification dismissals and summary judgments, conducted class discovery, defeated class certification and obtained de-certification of classes in cases of both local and national scope. We have practiced before the Multidistrict Litigation Panel, and have served as lead defense counsel in several class action hearings in federal multi-district litigation, where we have briefed and argued important issues of first impression with respect to class action practice and procedure. We have represented clients both with plaintiffs' and defendants' classes. We have considerable experience representing corporate clients as plaintiffs in defendant class actions.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ~ Our IP lawyers have extensive experience representing insurance companies whose insured's are alleged to have violated the proprietary rights of others, including the defense of patent, trademark, trade dress, false advertising and copyright claims, with particular expertise relating to disputes involving the Internet. Recognized as one of the top five general firms with an intellectual property practice by Intellectual Property Today, we offer comprehensive legal services in all aspects of IP law, including one of the largest concentrations of prosecution services worldwide. Our IP Department has more than 160 lawyers and patent agents who offer industry-specific advice based on years of experience advocating before the courts and U.S. and international patent and trademark agencies.
Contacts
- Margaret H. Warner
+1 202 756 8228
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