Our firm is recognized as a leader in providing legal services to the life, health and disability insurance industry. Our national team of attorneys regularly provides counseling and handles litigated disputes involving all aspects of life, health and disability insurance at the trial court and appellate levels. Our attorneys have a wealth of knowledge in this area gained from years of representing insurers throughout the country. Our attorneys leverage the expertise throughout the firm to the benefit of our clients and work closely with the firm’s Healthcare and Employment & Labor practice groups, as well as with other attorneys from within our Insurance Division, which is one of the largest international teams of trial attorneys and business advisors dedicated to the institutional concerns and success of the insurance industry.
ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) Claims Representation
Our firm attorneys defend insurers, employee benefit plans, and fiduciaries in ERISA claims and fiduciary litigation in trial and appellate courts throughout the country. Our practice encompasses both welfare benefit and pension plans. Our firm has significant class action experience and has defeated putative class actions brought by ERISA welfare benefit plan participants and others. Our firm attorneys also defend Department of Labor (DOL) investigations for breach of fiduciary duties and other alleged plan and fiduciary failures, and negotiate reductions or eliminations of DOL penalties.
Non-ERISA Claims Representation
Our firm attorneys provide counseling and aggressive defense to our clients in non-ERISA insurance matters, including life insurance, health insurance and disability insurance issues. Our attorneys litigate claims alleging policy breach and breaches of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. We provide our clients with effective and efficient resolutions of such disputes, and counsel clients as to how best to position themselves to avoid such problems in the future.
Our attorneys have successfully employed their oral advocacy skills on behalf of insurers in numerous ERISA cases. However, our attorneys’ abilities in the courtroom are even more evident in non-ERISA litigation, with its added complexities of juries and witness testimony. Our firm’s national reputation as a trial firm serves our clients well, since our opponents know that Our firm lawyers can and do try jury cases regularly.
Commercial (Non-Claims) Litigation
Our firm attorneys litigate other types of disputes impacting the life, health, and disability insurance industry, including matters relating to sales practices, agent and broker issues, suitability, investment portfolios, unfair competition, fiduciary duty issues, fraud and misrepresentation, rescission, pension plans, financial planning, annuity, broker commission practices, disputes over distribution of benefits, and contractual disputes. We have extensive experience in defending class actions and representative actions (e.g., Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17200 claims). Our attorneys bring their extensive trial experience to bear when representing insurers in this type of litigation.