Practice Leader: Kirk A. Pasich
Dickstein Shapiro is a national law firm with a premier Insurance Coverage Practice that represents insureds around the country in disputes with insurance carriers. Of the Firm’s 400 attorneys in Washington, DC, New York, and Los Angeles, more than 90 devote the majority of their time to insurance coverage matters. Attorneys at all levels are involved in the Insurance Coverage Practice, including attorneys with extensive settlement and litigation experience at the trial and appellate levels.
Firm attorneys have a reputation for legal excellence, exceptional responsiveness, and technical expertise, as well as for developing and implementing creative approaches and solutions to complex business disputes. Many of the Firm’s insurance coverage attorneys are nationally recognized as pioneers and leaders in insurance recovery, and are uniformly rated as among the country’s leading lawyers. Furthermore, unlike some firms that “walk both sides of the street,” Dickstein Shapiro exclusively represents insureds in coverage disputes.
Firm attorneys have briefed and argued many of the most important and best-known decisions favorable to insureds, in both state and federal appellate courts. Dickstein Shapiro attorneys also have written hundreds of articles on insurance coverage issues, as well as authored, co-authored, and edited several books on insurance topics. Many of their writings have been quoted in court opinions throughout the country as support for pro-insured rulings.
The Firm represents and has represented many Fortune 500 insureds—as well as small and privately held companies, industrial companies, utilities, entertainment industry companies, municipalities, state governments, charities, and not-for-profit organizations—in resolving disputes with their insurance companies for coverage. The Firm represents insureds in all types of insurance coverage claims and matters, including asbestos, broker liability, business interruption, commercial general liability (CGL), crime and fidelity, directors and officers (D&O) liability, disability, employment practices, entertainment industry errors and omissions, environmental, errors and omissions, healthcare, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, motion picture production, products liability, property, rescission, and representation and warranty disputes. Dickstein Shapiro is handling cases on behalf of insureds in courts throughout the United States and is counseling numerous insureds in an effort to resolve their disputes without resorting to litigation. The Firm also provides coverage advice to clients in connection with policy renewals, risk assessment and management, and business transactions, including mergers and acquisitions.
Dickstein Shapiro attorneys have handled a wide range of insurance coverage matters involving all lines of insurance and ranging in magnitude from thousands to billions of dollars. The Firm’s attorneys also have handled matters across the United States and in many foreign jurisdictions, and they have developed cutting-edge litigation and settlement approaches. For example, one of our partners served as a member of the American Bar Association Task Force on Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation. Two of our partners are the editors of the upcoming new edition of The ABA Manual on Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation, a widely used guide for the management of insurance coverage cases.
The Firm’s attorneys are widely recognized not only for their innovation in litigation, but also for their innovative development of new coverage theories and new insurance products. For example, Firm attorneys represented Keene Corporation in the landmark asbestos insurance coverage case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia adopted the “continuous trigger” theory of coverage, recognizing that coverage for asbestos bodily injury claims was triggered for all periods from a party’s first exposure to asbestos through the manifestation of asbestos-related disease. Our attorneys also developed a theory, now accepted by many courts across the country, whereby insureds can obtain coverage under “personal injury” provisions of CGL policies (that is, provisions insuring claims relating to intangible personal rights, such as the rights to be free from false imprisonment, nuisances, and slander) for pollution and other environmental claims. Our attorneys also developed the market and product design for “trading” insurance claims (whereby a third party pays cash for insurance claims, thus allowing an insured to obtain substantial economic recoveries without resorting to litigation, and the third party then pursues resolution of the claims with insurance carriers).
Dickstein Shapiro has aggressively pursued early payments from insurance carriers in litigation. For example, in two recent D&O matters, the Firm succeeded on summary judgment motions in obtaining court orders that insurance carriers had to pay their insureds’ defense costs in underlying lawsuits, even though the insurers contended that their policies were void because of misstatements in financial statements submitted with the policy applications. In one of these cases, the Firm obtained this result before any significant discovery occurred and just after the insurers filed answers to the complaint. In 2007 alone, the Firm obtained more than $1 billion for its clients through settlements, arbitrations, and lawsuits.
The Firm’s attorneys have used flexible approaches to manage matters for clients. Dickstein Shapiro typically staffs matters with fewer lawyers than other law firms, thus ensuring that those who work on client matters focus on those matters, are intimately familiar with the client and the client’s needs, and handle the matters efficiently. The Firm adjusts staffing and approaches based on particular client needs and case demands. The goal in all situations is to maximize results while providing representation in a cost-efficient, responsive, and effective manner.
Our attorneys are consistently identified by industry researchers as top players in the insurance coverage arena. The Insurance Coverage Practice and its attorneys has been recognized in every edition of Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business and are described as “bright and aggressive,” “respected by insurers and outside counsel alike,” and “energetic and creative.” In June 2008, Chambers USA gave Dickstein Shapiro its Award for Excellence in the Insurance Coverage: Policy Holder category. In September 2007, Insurance Coverage partners Kirk Pasich, and Robin Cohen were named in Lawdragon’s prestigious “500 Leading Lawyers in America” guide and four additional Insurance Coverage partners were named as finalists. Lawdragon also named the Firm’s Insurance Coverage Practice as the nation’s leading insurance coverage practice and remarked that the Practice boasts “one of the most respected and largest legal teams devoted to representing policyholders in complicated insurance disputes.”Since its inaugural issue in 2005, Lawdragon has named several Dickstein Shapiro Insurance Coverage attorneys in its guides, including: Lawdragon “500 Leading Lawyers in America”; “500 Leading Litigators in America”; and “500 Rising Stars, New Worlds,” hailing them as “top lawyers in the field working on behalf of policyholders.”
Our attorneys are frequently sought out by the media to provide commentary and insight into current legal issues. In its history, the Insurance Coverage Practice has produced more than 500 bylined articles and 10 books. They have been featured by leading publications including Business Insurance, Corporate Legal Times, Daily Journal, Insurance Coverage Law Bulletin, Investor’s Business Daily, Legal Times, Los Angeles Times, Mealey’s Litigation Report, and National Law Journal, among others, as well as on national news programs for stations such as Fox News, CNBC, CBS, and ABC.