Legal malpractice insurance or lawyers professional liability insurance will not reduce your risk of loss, but like your home or auto insurance it will provide you peace of mind in the event someone alleges your professional negligence. The best insurers have comprehensive networks of skilled legal professionals with extensive experience defending legal malpractice insurance claims. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday afternoon I discovered Ben Glass’s post from September 18, 2009, Hulk Hogan Sues His Lawyers. In his post, Ben Glass recounts the tragedy of Nick Bollea’s serious automobile accident when he was 17. A passenger in the vehicle was permanently injured. Terry Bollea’s (aka “Hulk Hogan“) is Nick’s father. Unfortunately, at the time of the accident the Hogan family only had $250,000 in auto insurance coverage Read the rest of this entry »
I am very excitedt to announce that I will be working with David A. Grossbaum, Esquire of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP to develop a series of articles on different aspects of a Lawyers Professional Liability Policy. We will be working from the booklet, An Annotated Lawyers Professional Liability Policy prepared in 2009 by the Insurance Services Practice Group of Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP. Read the rest of this entry »
According to Mary Alice Robbins in an article for Law.com, on June 17, a Blanco County, Texas, grand jury indicted Bennie Fuelberg, former general manager of Pedernales Electric Cooperative (PEC), and Walter Demond, a former Clark, Thomas & Winters shareholder who represented the PEC for two decades. On June 18, Clark, Thomas & Winters agreed to pay the PEC $4.1 million to avoid a civil suit. Read the rest of this entry »
by David A. Grossbaum, Esquire, Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP
“Originally published in the Journal of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society, July 2009, Volume XXII, Number 7.
Reprinted here by permission.”
Issues relating to whether an insured was aware of a potential claim before an insurance policy commenced, so as to allow a carrier to disclaim coverage or rescind the policy, continue to dominate recent professional liability coverage decisions. The debate can be summarized as follows: does a court determine the insured’s awareness of a potential claim by simply determining if the insured subjectively appreciated the potential for a claim, or does the court consider what the insured actually knew and then determine what the hypothetical “objectively reasonable” insured would have appreciated? Read the rest of this entry »
On August 26, 2009, the Supreme Court of California entered an order adopting new Rule of Professional Conduct 3-410, effective January 1, 2010. Rule 3-410 requires lawyers without professional liability insurance to provide written disclosure of their lack of coverage to all new clients and returning clients with new engagements at the time of the client’s engagement. Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey weighed in on the current healthcare reform debate (Wall Street Journal, The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare). Some question whether it was ill advised or not and honestly, that is for his customers, board and shareholders to determine in the end. As a citizen, I am glad he had the guts and took the time to lay out his thoughts persuasively and in detail unlike the loons disrupting the healthcare town hall meetings across the country these past several weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
The current debate on healthcare reform in Congress and around the country is very troubling for me as a man, a father, a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, an American and a human being. While there are many sides of the debate and I do not profess to have any special insight as to the specific problems or even the solutions being discussed, the debate has shown in stark relief that there remain many among us that simply do not care about anyone but themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
Few businesses are more vulnerable to disaster than law firms. The Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) will host a webinar, Disaster and Recovery: Preparing Your Business for Hurricane Season, on Thursday, August 13, at 1:00-2:00 pm EST. This webinar, sponsored by Ernst & Young, will discuss what law firms Read the rest of this entry »
Looking for excellent resources for our clients and prospects to help them understand legal malpractice insurance better, I rediscovered the excellent publication prepared by Chubb: “Managing Legal Malpractice“. This excellent resource opens Read the rest of this entry »