Blank Rome

With 15 offices (14 throughout the US and one in Shanghai, China) the practitioners of Blank Rome are revered most notably for their activity in the insurance recovery space. The crown jewel of the firm, the insurance team takes on cutting-edge matters on behalf of leading corporations and institutions, distinguishing itself from its peers by providing counsel exclusively to policyholders. Members of the insurance group are acclaimed by clients for the breadth of their expertise in, among other matters, complex insurance litigation and disputes arising from manuscript policies, and are additionally recognized as “responsive and providing sound advice.” Clients go on to praise Blank Rome’s insurance specialists for being “abreast of the latest commercial developments.” 

     While policyholder-side insurance work may be what the firm is most celebrated for, it is making strides in other areas as well; its New York office recently benefitted from the recruitment of Craig Weiner and Lisa Coyle, two all-purpose commercial litigators who joined Blank Rome in the spring of 2023. 

     The firm, and particularly DC-based future star Omid Safa, scored big in September 2022 when the Safa-led firm team secured a favorable jury verdict in favor of asset-based lender CIT Group/Equipment Financing in an aviation insurance case involving a complex dispute over coverage for multimillion-dollar losses resulting from the confiscation of an aircraft by Brazilian tax authorities. The jury found that CIT had met its burden to establish coverage for the confiscation of an aircraft by the Brazilian government. As a result, CIT will be awarded the full amount of its multimillion-dollar damages claims (which were established on summary judgment) and statutory interest. The current value of the award is $5 million. DC-based co-chair James Murray wins praise for the deep insurance knowledge that he makes available to leaders in corporations, government entities, and religious institutions, among others, in their most sensitive and critical matters – often pertaining to sexual abuse liability and COVID-related coverage claims. Murray serves as court-appointed special insurance counsel to the debtors in two Catholic organization bankruptcies that were successfully confirmed in 2022. 

     Murray is additionally working alongside his fellow insurance recovery co-chair, Los Angeles-based Linda Kornfeld, who continues to demonstrate her recovery prowess and maintains the position of being among the firm’s most active and capable practitioners. Kornfeld and Murray were recently heavily involved in the COVID-19 business interruption space, leading more than a dozen recovery actions – each seeking hundreds of millions of dollars. In one such matter, this Blank Rome duo also represents the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles against FM Insurance in litigation involving the Eagles’ $1 billion property and business-interruption policy. Murray and Kornfeld are helping the Eagles recover their COVID-19 losses stemming from their inability to use their stadium for the 2020 football season, as well as for star-studded 2020 summer concerts and major soccer and lacrosse events as a result of the pandemic. DC-based co-chair John Gibbons meanwhile acts with Safa on behalf of Nooter in connection with the enforcement and recovery of insurance proceeds for Nooter. They are now engaged in two competing actions in Missouri courts. Nooter enforced its right to insurance defense and indemnity in connection with asbestos bodily injury suits filed against the company. Nooter fully litigated declaratory judgment rights under excess insurance policies, and the Missouri state courts issued controlling judgments for those policies. In January 2023, Evanston Insurance Company initiated a suit in an effort to “dump limits” by “tendering” limits of liability unconnected to actual claims to evade its defense obligations. Nooter has moved to dismiss the suit, which violates existing judgments.