Property

Expert Analysis

• New 'Bad Faith' Claim Law Holds NJ Insurers Accountable

  

  New Jersey’s recently enacted Insurance Fair Conduct Act, giving policyholders a bad faith cause of action for claims involving uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, is an important step toward countering unfair insurer advantage and expanding consumer protections, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

• Insurance Implications Of Texas '8 Corners' Rulings

  

  Two recent Texas Supreme Court opinions resolve a long-pending question by reaffirming the so-called eight-corners rule as the primary means for determining an insurer's duty to defend, which should provide greater consistency between future state and federal decisions, says Susan Kidwell at Locke Lord.

• Why I'll Miss Arguing Before Justice Breyer

  

  Carter Phillips at Sidley shares some of his fondest memories of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer both inside and out of the courtroom, and explains why he thinks the justice’s multipronged questions during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments were everything an advocate could ask for.

• Defense Counsel Must Alter Tactics To Fight Outsize Verdicts

  

  If defense counsel continue to use the same strategies they’ve always relied on without recognizing plaintiffs attorneys’ new playbook, so-called nuclear verdicts, such as the recent $730 million jury verdict in a wrongful death case in Texas, will continue to proliferate, says Robert Tyson at Tyson & Mendes.

• BigLaw Must Nix All-Or-Nothing Work Model To Retain Talent

  

  Record numbers of workers quitting in the “Great Resignation,” paired with the growing success of nontraditional and freelance legal services, show that BigLaw’s management committees must reconsider rigid billable hour expectations and be open to part-time and noncontinuous work arrangements, says Hui Chen at Hui Chen Ethics.

• 11th Circ. Ruling Highlights Trend Of Stricter Insurer Valuation

  

  The Eleventh Circuit's recent decision in favor of the insurer in Metal Products v. Ohio Security Insurance is a jarring reminder that both Florida insurance companies and courts are increasingly viewing policy valuation provisions with stricter scrutiny, say Gina Lozier and Christopher Choquette at Berger Singerman.

• The Flaws In The Traditional Approach To Hiring A Law Firm

  

  Trevor Faure at Smarter Law Solutions and Gregory Richter at Major Lindsey offer an inside look at Teva Pharmaceuticals' recent overhaul of its law firm relationships through anonymous grading, and discuss how the company’s surprising findings on the correlation between quality and cost reveal shortcomings in traditional business development.

• Federal Courts Are Right Venue For COVID Insurance Cases

  

  Two recent Law360 guest articles positing that state, not federal, courts should be deciding COVID-19 insurance coverage disputes incorrectly assume that these cases contain novel insurance law issues, say attorneys at Dentons.

• Keys To Keeping Law Firm Talent Amid The Great Resignation

  

  With employees leaving their jobs at an unprecedented pace during the "Great Resignation," law firm leaders looking to retain associates and professional staff need to operate with emotional intelligence, talk about failures openly and take the time to offer frequent feedback, says Dorianna Phillips at Lane Powell.

• How AI Can Transform Crisis Management In Litigation

  

  Attorneys should understand how to use rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technology to help clients prepare for potential catastrophic events and the inevitable litigation arising from them, from predicting crises before they occur to testing legal theories once they arise, say Stratton Horres at Wilson Elser and David Steiger.

• Litigation Complicates Surprise Medical Bill Law Compliance

  

  Health care providers working on compliance with a recently effective law intended to curb surprise medical bills should prioritize provisions of the statute that are not being challenged by a group of ongoing lawsuits, and prepare to take advantage of potential provider-friendly court rulings regarding components in question, say Brenna Jenny and Jaime Jones at Sidley.

• How NJ Bad Faith Auto Insurance Bill Compares To Pa.'s

  

  The recently enacted New Jersey Insurance Fair Conduct Act, is in some ways narrower and in other ways broader than Pennsylvania's notoriously strict bad faith statute and leaves open many fundamental questions, which took Pennsylvania decades of litigation to resolve, say Kristin Jones and Brian Callaway at Troutman Pepper.

• The Rising Demand For Commercial Litigators In 2022

  

  Amid broken supply chains, pandemic-induced bankruptcies and a rise in regulation by litigation, strong commercial litigators — strategists who are adept in trying a range of tortious and contractual disputes — are becoming a must-have for many law firms, making this year an opportune moment to make the career switch, say Michael Ascher and Kimberly Donlon at Major Lindsey.