United States (National)

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 laudable 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 auspicious recruits of Craig Weiner and Lisa Coyle, two all-purpose commercial litigators who joined Blank Rome in the spring of 2023. More recently, in August 2024, the firm took on Jeffrey Schulman, a revered New York-based partner previously with the (now-defunct) Pasich firm, once helmed by insurance luminary Kirk Pasich.
     New York-based Jared Zola, provided lead counsel in a $25 million coronavirus business-interruption litigation for Urban Edge Properties involving insurance policies that expressly provide coverage for the presence of viruses. The client sought coverage from its pollution-liability insurer for losses from the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 pandemic. The insurer filed a motion for summary judgment seeking to end the entire case as a matter of law. After Zola presented oral argument for Urban Edge, in January 2023, the court issued an order denying the summary judgment motion. Zola makes the impressive leap from future star to litigation star in this edition. DC-based Omid Safa scored big in September 2022 when the Safa-led firm team secured a favorable jury verdict in favor of asset-based lender The 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 involved a complex dispute over coverage for multimillion-dollar losses resulting from the confiscation of an aircraft by 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 currently $5 million.
     Insurance DC-based co-chair James Murray garners praise for the deep insurance knowledge that he makes available to leaders in the corporate space, 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 also served in the role of lead insurance counsel to real estate developer Combined Properties as the company seeks over $100 million in coverage following the destruction of a mixed-use development in connection with a recent and catastrophic fire in Fairfax County, VA. Murray was joined at the helm of this matter by his fellow star and DC partner John Gibbons. 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 boast recent heavy involvement in the COVID-19 business interruption space, leading more than a dozen recovery actions each seeking hundreds of millions of dollars. One such matter, this Blank Rome duo also represents the NFL’s Philadelphia Eagles in insurance coverage litigation 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 due to the pandemic. Gibbons meanwhile acts with Safa on behalf of Nooter in connection with the enforcement and recovery of insurance proceeds for Nooter and are now engaged in two competing actions in Missouri courts.