Inaugural ABA Women in Litigation Conference

Kara Cleary and Andrea Warren, from Barnes & Thornburg’s Policyholder Insurance Recovery Group, attended the inaugural ABA Women in Litigation conference in Chicago on November 5-7, 2014. The conference partnered with the Women in Insurance Network to provide outstanding panels and networking sessions involving coverage litigators, in-house counsel, brokers, judges and other industry representatives. Kara and Andrea’s work in the Policyholder Insurance Recovery Group led them to particularly appreciate the panels relating to cyber coverage, as well as coverage in the context of product liability suits and contractual indemnification obligations. One panel discussing general litigation strategies made clear the importance and efficiencies created if a company can use a single database to house and manage claimant information and litigation documents when dealing with multi-district product liability cases. That advice has value for in house counsel tasked with managing insurance claims as well.  Insurance company claims handlers often ask for extensive documentation and information relating to the claims pending against their corporate policyholders.  Whether or not those inquiries consist of overreaching is an analysis for another post, but having a solid repository of claimant information and claims-related documents should make responding to those inquiries significantly less painful for in house counsel.

• RELATED TOPICS
• Insurance Claims
• product liability