New York

Cohen Ziffer Frenchman & McKenna LLP, which opened its doors in New York in January 2021, is built on the reputations and experience of nationally recognized lawyers who have worked together and represented policyholders as a unified team for more than 20 years, recovering billions of dollars for their clients and securing landmark judicial rulings. The group has earned a national reputation as fierce advocates for policyholders in high-profile, high-dollar disputes against insurance companies. The team—which has more than tripled in size since the firm’s founding—represents a client base of Fortune 500 companies, hedge funds, and private equity firms.

Many of those recoveries have come in closely watched cases, including a first-of-its-kind appellate decision on flood limit clauses that allowed New Jersey Transit to access $400 million in coverage after Superstorm Sandy. For a pump manufacturer, the firm won a precedent-setting $500 million ruling over insurance coverage for asbestos liabilities. And on issues at the frontier of insurance law, the firm has won multiple significant rulings—dealing with, for instance, damage from email spoofing under computer crime policies and a first-impression test of insurance coverage for SPACs. The firm has also earned a reputation for gaining precedent-setting rulings and shifting the landscape of D&O and E&O coverage in favor of policyholders.

Additional precedent-setting wins in recent high-profile disputes include:

• A rare reversal of a pro-insurer jury verdict, the first jury verdict that Superior Court Judge Mary M. Johnston has reversed in her nearly 20 years on the bench, involving a high-profile insurance coverage dispute between AIG Specialty Insurance Company and Conduent State Healthcare. The ruling was upheld by the Delaware Supreme Court.
  
  
• A Delaware Superior Court ruling that a “bump-up” exclusion in a D&O policy did not bar coverage for Harman International Industries’ $28 million settlement of an underlying securities class action alleging violations of Sections 14(a) and 20(a) of the Exchange Act.
  
  
• A victory in the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, where the court upheld a trial court’s ruling granting summary judgment to StoneX Commodity Solutions as to liability on its counterclaims for breach of contract and declaratory judgment against Endurance American Insurance Co., Zurich American Insurance Co., and Atain Insurance Co.
  
  
• A Delaware Superior Court decision finding that AMC Entertainment Holdings’ payment of shares to settle a lawsuit brought by AMC’s shareholders satisfied its insurance policy’s definition of “Loss.”
  
  
• A Delaware Superior Court summary judgment ruling that earlier actions are not interrelated to the former Viacom shareholder class action filed in 2019 following the merger of CBS and Viacom—favorably permitting Viacom to continue its pursuit of D&O insurance coverage.
  
  
• The affirmance by the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of JDS Construction Group on the issue of liability against surety bond insurer Talisman Casualty Insurance Company, in connection with a $13 million surety bond dispute arising from the construction of one of Manhattan’s tallest buildings.

With decades of insurance recovery and advisory experience, Cohen Ziffer also assists clients with their insurance counseling needs, guiding organizations through complex insurance issues and advising on the insurance coverage that is right for them. The firm’s attorneys work with clients and their insurance brokers to identify the most likely liability risks and to review their insurance policies and advise on whether they are likely to cover those risks. When incidents do occur, they also guide their clients through the insurance claims process.

The firm’s commercial litigators are first-rate trial lawyers who also have experience tackling a host of complex commercial insurance disputes on behalf of organizations across the country, and have handled a spectrum of very large, complex, high-stakes, and cutting-edge cases. The team litigates these high-stakes coverage suits in a variety of state and federal courts and tribunals and jurisdictions around the world, and represents organizations in a diverse array of economic sectors, including financial services, manufacturing, professional services, and real estate.

Updated Sep 2025