The firm serves clients' needs in claims advice, litigation and appeals, risk management, and counseling. The firm's lawyers have experience in resolving complex disputes in state and federal trial and appellate courts throughout the country arising under primary and excess property, commercial, and professional liability policies involving a wide range of exposures. For example:

• The firm's attorneys have been litigating intellectual property infringement and unfair business practice disputes across the country for more than a decade. They have secured determinations that their clients did not have a duty to defend or indemnify such policyholders as Discover Financial Services, the Walgreen Company, and Dish Network in patent infringement litigation under their respective “advertising injury” coverage provisions.
• Likewise, the firm's attorneys have secured rulings that commercial disparagement allegations cannot trigger “personal and advertising injury” coverage where the alleged disparagement is not directed at the underlying claimant, and determinations that false-advertising, antitrust and price-fixing claims do not trigger a duty to defend under “personal and advertising injury” coverage.
• The firm's attorneys have addressed coverage issues in the context of terrorism financing lawsuits. They recently prosecuted an appeal before the Ohio Court of Appeals from a declaratory judgment that a liability insurer had a duty to defend Chiquita against tort claims arising from Chiquita's Colombian operations, which allegedly had bankrolled various terrorist groups in the country for decades. The appellate court reversed and entered judgment for the insurer, finding no coverage because Chiquita's conduct was intentional and the injuries had occurred outside the policies' coverage territory.
• The firm's attorneys represent insurers in construction defect coverage litigation throughout the country, including Vermont, Colorado, and California, involving multi-million-dollar claims under complex owner-controlled insurance programs arising from myriad construction defects at large residential and commercial developments. The cases involve issues including the constitutionality of retroactive statutes, the applicability of bad faith statutes to owner claims, and policy reformation.
• In the asbestos area, the firm's attorneys have served as lead trial counsel in California state courts representing excess insurers in the uncharted waters of exhaustion of primary insurance, products versus operations, and stacking of limits.
• In connection with claims arising from violations of privacy, property, and theft of information stemming from cyber intrusions, the firm's attorneys are litigating cases of first impression, such as the one in a New York state court where they represent an insurance company against Sony Corporation. The case involves the issue of whether a commercial general liability policy provides coverage for claims arising out of computer hacking and, in this case, the alleged exposure of the personal information of millions of Sony's PlayStation network customers. The firm also works with insurers to assess related risks, including counseling regarding the underwriting and evaluation of recently developed cyber-liability insurance.

The firm's attorneys handle a variety of insurance-related practice areas, including:

• appellate;
• bad faith;
• Bermuda market;
• commercial transportation;
• construction defects;
• environmental/toxic tort;
• first-party property;
• intellectual property;
• life;
• managed care and health care;
• policy drafting and claims management;
• primary and excess general liability; and
• professional/management liability.

“Ours is an entirely new breed of law firm that's unlike others in our niche,” said Mr. Nicolaides. “In addition to the specific nature and scope of our experience, our aim is to attract the nation's best insurance lawyers, regardless of geographic location – especially those who share our philosophical approach – and empower and enable their continued success by providing the very best technology platform.”