HarrisMartin's Superstorm Sandy Insurance Coverage Litigation Conference Speaker Profiles

Tom Quinn’s commercial civil litigation practice spans 30 years and focuses on professional liability defense and insurance coverage. He represents lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers and other professionals in malpractice actions, and represents insurance companies in coverage disputes and rendering coverage opinions. He also has a general commercial litigation practice handling ERISA and environmental matters, including class actions.

Tom’s trial practice focuses on New Jersey state and federal courts, and he is a New Jersey Certified Civil Trial Attorney. Tom is well known to New Jersey judges and has lectured on both professional liability and insurance coverage issues at their annual Judicial College. He is the current president of the Essex County Bar Association, New Jersey’s second-largest bar organization. Tom is credited with more than 15 reported cases, and more than 20 unreported cases, primarily in the coverage and professional malpractice areas, some of which are landmark New Jersey decisions. In addition to litigation, Tom counsels professionals on risk management techniques and represents them before ethics boards.

Whether defending a lawyer or advising an insurer, Tom has the ability to quickly grasp the subject matter of a case and focus precisely on the core issues to formulate a practical strategy for resolving the case. Tom is cognizant that the best outcome of litigation generally is a resolved case, and he has the requisite experience to determine whether case resolution should be accomplished through motion practice, litigation, settlement or trial.

Robert D. Chesler is a shareholder in Anderson Kill's Newark office. Mr. Chesler represents policyholders in a broad variety of coverage claims against their insurers and advises companies with respect to their insurance programs.

A leading participant in the birth of modern insurance law in the early 1980s, Mr. Chesler has earned the reputation as "The Insurance Guru" for exceptional insurance coverage knowledge, and has emerged as a leader in such new areas of insurance coverage as cyber-insurance, D&O, IP, privacy and "green" insurance.

Mr. Chesler has served as the attorney of record in more than 30 reported insurance decisions, representing clients including General Electric, Ingersoll-Rand, Westinghouse, Schering, Chrysler, and Unilever, as well as many small businesses including gas stations and dry cleaners. He has received numerous professional accolades, including a top-tier ranking for Insurance Litigation: New Jersey in Chambers USA: American's Leading Lawyers for Business, which dubs him a "top-notch attorney" and "dominant force in coverage disputes." He is also listed in The Best Lawyers in America, Super Lawyers and Who's Who Legal in the Insurance and Reinsurance section of the publication.

Mr. Chesler is a relentless advocate for his clients in their efforts to obtain coverage from their insurance companies. He has strength in creatively analyzing complex insurance coverage disputes and rapidly driving towards resolution. He has spent his entire career obtaining settlements from insurance companies. He can speak "insurancese" as well as the insurers, and knows how to approach insurance companies, when to talk to them and when to litigate. His depth of experience enables him to distinguish a bad insurance claim from a good one, and understand and implement best strategies for obtaining money for his clients quickly and cost-effectively.

Mr. Chesler taught history at the State University of New York at Purchase and Legal Methods at Harvard University. He currently teaches insurance law at Rutgers Law School. He holds a Ph.D. in history from Princeton University and maintains a scholarly interest in insurance. He is co-author of the seminal article Patterns of Judicial Interpretation of Insurance Coverage for Hazardous Waste Site Liability, 18 Rutgers L.J. 9 (1986), which has been cited by numerous courts, including seven state supreme courts and the Second Circuit, along with dozens of other articles on insurance issues. He is co-author of Insurance Coverage for Intellectual Property and Cyber Insurance Claims, published by Thomas West, and is former co-editor in chief of the Environmental Claims Journal. He has chaired seminars on the new cyber-policies and food insurance issues for the ABA and NJSBA, and is currently Chair of the Insurance Sub-Committee of the American Intellectual Property Law Association.