In recent days, the law firm of Perkins Coie announced five new attorneys have joined its national Insurance Coverage practice in the Washington, D.C. office.
Leon Kellner and Vivek Chopra join as partners from the firm of Dickstein Shapiro, and Christina Buschmann, Aaron Coombs and Laura Dellatorre join as associates.
The addition of the attorneys follows the addition of partners Selena Linde and Michael Sharkey, also formerly of Dickstein Shapiro, to the Washington, D. C. Office, about two months ago.
Tim Burns, Firmwide Insurance Coverage Litigation practice Chair was quoted as saying in a press release at the firm’s website: “We are very pleased to have this new group on board with us, Leon and Vivek are exceptional policyholder attorneys and add to our growing bench of first-chair litigators. We are continually working to expand the group with premier talent and the combined trial skills and litigation experience of this group will help us continue to provide exceptional service to our clients in all aspects of insurance coverage litigation.”
The focus of the group’s practice will be on the representation of corporate policyholders in insurance recovery efforts in state and federal courts; in addition they will advise clients on a number of other matters, including environmental liability, first-party losses, directors and officers insurance, asbestos coverage, errors and omissions policies, employee dishonesty and bad faith.
Leon Kellner was quoted as saying: “Perkins Coie’s policyholder practice has emerged on the national scene in the last two years as an industry leader on the policyholder side. The firm’s reputation as a prestigious national full service law firm and its commitment to represent only policyholders, together with its growing bench of now more than 45 talented policyholder attorneys made the decision to join Perkins an easy decision for us.”
Kellner has nearly 25 years of experience representing policyholders, having been involved in all aspects of insurance coverage litigation. He has successfully recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients, and ranked as a leading policyholder attorney by Chambers USA from 2005 to 2011, both nationally and in Washington, D.C.
Chopra provides representation for policyholders in state and federal courts. He has as well, recovered hundreds of millions of dollars for his corporate policyholder clients. He has represented major pharmaceutical, hospitality and telecommunications companies in a broad variety of insurance coverage disputes. As well, he has represented Fortune 100 companies in multi-month trials.
Buschmann received her J.D. from The College of William & Mary; Coombs received his J.D. from University of Virginia School of Law; there he served as the executive editor for the Virginia Journal of Social Policy and Law. Dellatorre earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Perkin Coie’s Insurance Coverage group has significant experience representing policyholders in all types of dispute resolution proceedings, from pre-litigation negotiation and advocacy to litigation in both state and federal courts throughout the United States to domestic and international arbitrations.
Perkins Coie has over 850 lawyers in 18 offices across the United States and in China.