Breakfast

Premiere Session I - Danger Zone: Heightened Duties for Professionals Representing Companies in the Zone of Insolvency

• Speakers:

• Lisa Lipkin, Berkley Select

• Kimberly Rients Blair, Wilson Elser

• Katharine Valvano, Hartford Global Specialty

• Meghan Welch, AM Trust North America

Whether a company is insolvent or not can have significant implications and raise a host of issues for a board of directors, management and their advisors to consider. For example, if a company is insolvent, or is in the "zone of insolvency," it is generally accepted that the fiduciary duty a board of directors ordinarily owes to shareholders and the corporation itself can expand to consider the interest of creditors. (In a solvent corporation, creditors are left to rely on contractual rights.) Also, in an insolvency situation, some courts have held that the protection of the business judgment rule does not apply to the extent it would to a financially healthy enterprise, utilizing a theory that the assets of an insolvent corporation are impressed with a trust for the benefit of creditors and shareholders, and therefore the appropriate standard a court will use in reviewing a corporate action is one of "entire fairness." Professionals offering advice to companies within the “zone of insolvency”, including lawyers, accountants, lenders, and turn around specialists have to avoid various pitfalls in preventing aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty claims and potentially contributing to the deepening insolvency of the company.

Break

Session 1 - Cyber: Cyber Insurance Coverage – Where We are and Where We May be Going!

• Speakers:

• Christopher Liu, AIG

• Gary Mozer, Shiseido Americas Corporation

• Richard Reiter, Self Employed

• Aarti Soni, McGriff, Seibels & Williams

• Ayesha West, Everest Insurance Company

Cyber policies cover a myriad of claims, including breach response, cyber, media and technology claims, crime, regulatory, and potentially much more. The continued evolution of the technological revolution may continue to expand the scope of risks associated with cyber policies. Industry experts will discuss coverage options currently available under cyber policies and what risks future policies may cover.

Session 1 - EPL/D&O: Professional, D&O and EPL Issues Relating to Mass Shootings Inside Companies, Churches, Schools and Public Areas

• Speakers:

• Michelle Arbitrio, Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP

• Rose Charles, Sompo International Insurance

• Matthew Rabin, Arch Insurance Group Inc.

• Bob Titus, Risk Analytics, LLC

Mass shootings present potential risks to board members, executives, insurers, brokers, and resolution specialists who must all work to stay ahead of the preventative and responsive curve when a mass shooting occurs. Many different types of claims arise from these events that touch on insured risks covered by employment, professional, and directors & officers liability policies.  This panel will provide pragmatic discussions and take-aways for preparation, response and resolution of claims relating to mass shootings from the perspectives of claims analysts and defense counsel with experience in employment, professional, and directors & officers liability matters.

Session 1 - Management Liability: Girl on Fire: The Price of Pursuing the Truth in the #MeToo World

• Speakers:

• Kelly Hopper Moore, Liberty Mutual

• Michael Mazurczak, Melick & Porter, LLP

• Kelly Waters, Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP

A number of recent movements such as #MeToo and #TimesUp seek justice and equality for all. While these movements have exposed the pervasiveness of sexual harassment, there is more than meets the eye. What is now shocking is not just the atrocity of the number or frequency of sexual harassment cases, but the incredible personal cost of pursuing the truth. The panel will discuss recent cases (including actor Geoffrey Rush’s odd intimacies with actress Yael Stone and the rape of Katie Brennan, the chief of staff at the New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency by Albert J. Alvarez, NJ Governor Murphy’s campaign’s director) that have forced women to expose their personal matters in the harshest of public and critical forums. These private matters have become public invasions. When not taken seriously, women may file suit or tell their story to the media. Many harassers and/or companies do not feel it is a priority to address the issue of sexual assault until it affects them. The panel will discuss the implications of going public, including emotional consequences, the legal and financial quagmire, as well as, the impact of being disbelieved, discredited or socially outcast akin to setting oneself on fire. 

Session 1 - Med Mal: Telemedicine – The Cryptocurrency of Professional Liability

• Speakers:

• Michael DePetrillo, Ochsner Health System

• David Hilton, Self Employed

• Mindy Nunez Duffourc, Self Employed

• Jennifer Schoenthal, Beazley

• Zoya Weisensel, Western Litigation

This panel will demystify the concepts of telemedicine, telehealth, eHealth, and mHealth to discuss how technology is transforming the healthcare delivery and medical liability and insurance systems. Our panelists will discuss the trends, benefits, and risks of high-tech healthcare. We will tackle issues such as whether interactions between healthcare providers and e-health users create a doctor-patient relationship, whether mHealth apps are medical devices or products, the benefits and risks of electronic data aggregation and whether data security risks are covered in professional liability policies, how to handle choice-of-law and venue selection in cross-border telemedicine, and more. We will look at case studies and policy language to dissect some of these issues on the ground level. The panel will introduce a legal design thinking exercise as a take-home tool for discovering new approaches and solutions to the challenges that eHealth and telemedicine inject into medical malpractice claims and litigation.  

Session 1 - Professional Liability: Actions/Inactions of Professionals During Catastrophic Events Can Lead to Liability

• Speakers:

• Todd Arno, AXIS Specialty US Services, Inc.

• Lisa Black, Black Marjieh & Sanford LLP

• Margaret Donnell, Self Employed

• Gary Strong, Gfeller Laurie LLP

Sometimes events occur like the California wildfires or significant earthquakes where professionals could have liability outside the scope of their professional services that they enter into during or after the catastrophe occurs. A professional’s interest in responsibility is not solely in preventing the root or proximal cause of the catastrophe but it also has to do with the standard of care as to once the catastrophe has occurred.  This could apply to design professionals, insurance brokers, doctors, lawyers among others who are hired to make all predicted or unpredicted catastrophes are covered.

Lunch

Session 2 - Cyber: The Challenge Ahead — Cyber Pricing, Modeling and Reserving

• Speakers:

• Elizabeth Dwyer, Rhode Island Insurance Division

• Richard Fidei , Greenberg Traurig LLP

• Robert Parisi, Marsh

• Matthew Prevost, Chubb

This session will focus on differing approaches to pricing, underwriting, modeling and reserving of cyber risk. Hacking attempts occur daily at a rapid-fire pace (one government agency who was later breached said that they see greater than 10 million attempts per month). The impact of cybercrime is expected to reach $6 trillion by 2021 with current spending paling in comparison at approximately $96.3 billion and the threat of systemic cyber risk like cloud service failure could cost society billions. Cyber attackers are becoming more sophisticated and new vulnerabilities continue to emerge – insurance carriers must do the same and develop new approaches for understanding the likelihood and impact of cyber risk.

Session 2 - Cyber: Well, It’s Too Late Now — Being Properly Prepared for a Data Breach

• Speakers:

• Dale Coddington, ProNet Group, Inc.

• Kimberly DeMarino, ESIS

• Richard Gatz, Arch Insurance Group Inc.

• Sean Hoar, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, LLP

Preparing for a data breach can be a daunting task. Many organizations today do not have an accurate picture of all of their computer systems, the types of data that may be stored, or how they are all networked together. Organizations must be willing to invest the time and resources required to be properly prepared when a data breach event takes place, because in today’s world, it really is when and not if. This panel discussion will present case studies and examine how an organization can properly prepare for a breach event.

Session 2 - EPL: Navigating the Weeds in the Workplace — State Disability Laws and Medical Marijuana

• Speakers:

• Dove Burns, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell and Hippel LLP

• Kristine D'Amato, Crum & Forster

• Jacqueline Gallagher, O'Hagan Meyer PLLC

• Carrie Graziani, Hanover Insurance

• Edward J. Ryan, Starr Indemnity & Liability Company

Thirty-two states have legalized medical marijuana and several others now permit recreational marijuana. Employers and claims professionals face new challenges in determining how to accommodate individuals who use medical marijuana and narcotics.  Savvy plaintiff’s lawyers are filing failure to accommodate claims under state disability discrimination statutes. Claims professionals and practitioners must understand the interplay between a state’s disability discrimination law and a state’s medical marijuana law, along with any off-duty conduct statutes that may exist. The medical marijuana statutes differ greatly by state. This panel will provide a broad perspective on how to assess these types of claims and offer best practices for avoiding them in the first place.

 
 

Session 2 - Legal Liability: Avoiding Malpractice and Bad Faith in an Electronic World

• Speakers:

• Lorrie Leonard, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty

• Jeffrey R. Neidle, AIG

• Kim Noble, Applied Financial Lines

• Brandon Story, James River Insurance Company

• Kathryn Whitlock, McAngus Goudelock & Courie, LLC (MGC)

Claims handlers and lawyers face many pitfalls and perils related to working in an electronic world. We have electronic document collection that collects too much or not enough; inadvertent production and inadvertent withholding, either of which can be related to sheer volume; misdirected e-mail because of a “reply all” or auto-populate; informal chatter via e-mail; attaching a draft to an e-mail; incompletely scrubbed template (perhaps sharing HIPAA protected information); data shared via a “shoulder surfer”—and the list goes on. 

This panel addresses the various risks, discuss different laws and rules that govern the conduct of claims handler and/or lawyers, actual cases in which alleged failure to protect against the risk resulted in a claim, and suggest ways that claims handlers and lawyers can reduce their own risk of having a claim asserted against them or their insured/client because of a contended or actual electronic error. 

Session 2 - Med Mal: One Bad Apple — Navigating Sexual Battery and Other Intentional Torts

• Speakers:

• Constance Endelicato, Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP

• David Prisco, CARE RRG, Inc.

• Jasmina Richter, Sanders & Parks, P.C.

• Jaynie Spies, Network Adjusters, Inc.

Intentional tort claims are flooding our news outlets with tales of the horrific actions of doctors. These include instances of sexual abuse during medical exams of athletes and a surgeon dubbed as “Dr. Death” whose intentional acts have taken lives and left many permanently injured. The question remains whether these tales affect the state of litigation involving lesser profile and alleged isolated acts of intentional torts. The current trends demonstrate that what may appear to be a professional negligence case involving alleged unwanted sexual advances by a physician toward a patient, or the alleged unconsented surgical procedure, are now spiraling into complex actions riddled with licensing and accreditation issues involving Medical Board and criminal investigation. These cases can escalate risk exposure and result in a devastating impact on the insureds’ practice. While there are many instances of credible claims there are also instances of false claims. This session will address how one bad claim can spiral into the professional, as well as, personal detriment of the provider. Early analysis of the credibility of the claim, determination of coverage, damage control strategies, ethical obligations, as well as, procedural issues will be addressed to aid in navigating through this daunting process.

Break

Session 3 - Cyber: Don't Let the Bytes Bite You — Avoiding Ethical Pitfalls in the Digital Age

• Speakers:

• Christopher Butler, Bowhead Specialty Underwriters, Inc.

• Dion Cominos, Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani

• Larry Goanos, AmWINS Group, Inc.

• Teresa Milano, Woodruff Sawyer

This session will delve into the overlay between traditional ethical perils and technology and provide an insightful exploration of both problems and solutions in this arena. The panel will address inadvertent disclosures during e-discovery; obtaining personal information from wearables and related personal devices; the propriety of recording conversations; hazards of utilizing cloud-based sites; dangers from metadata and other embedded phenomena; use of social media under false pretexts to gather information regarding parties, witnesses and jurors; and outright spying.  

Session 3 - Cyber: One Step Ahead — The Evolving Nature of Wire Transfer Fraud and Business Email Compromise

• Speakers:

• Amy Diamond, FBI

• Aisling Jumper, Fair American Insurance and Reinsurance Company

• Keith Novak, Kroll

• Marissa Olsen, Aspen Insurance

• Karen Painter Randall, Unknown

Wire fraud is increasingly affecting attorneys and other professionals. In this session, we will examine wire fraud from a number of vantage points, including the many different examples of wire fraud, how it is evolving, and steps that professionals like lawyers and real estate professionals can take to better protect themselves. Our panel will include prominent professionals in the fields of law, cyber security and data privacy, as well as a special agent with the FBI responsible for investigating criminal cyber-attacks targeting the financial sector. In addition, we will address the growing threat of business email compromise and steps professionals can take to decrease this threat. We’ll also discuss the types of insurance available, and whether professional liability policies will cover such losses or if professionals should research and purchase specific cyber policies. 

Session 3 - EPL: Minimizing the Exposure Created by Cutting-Edge Employment Issues

• Speakers:

• Joseph Gagliardo, Laner Muchin

• Laura Lapidus, CNA Insurance

• Jennifer Weinstein, Intact Insurance Specialty Solutions

• Laura Zaroski, Arthur J. Gallagher & Co.

Employers are faced with many new and emerging employment issues. Issues such as the opioid overdose crisis, PTSD, active shooter situations, employer use of biometric information, and liability for acts of third parties are all gaining new ground in the employment arena. In response, the need for appropriate and immediate crisis management has become critical in the wake of these emerging risks. This session will assist in exploring and understanding the effects these issues are having on employers' businesses, operations, and the potential legal liability that may result. By examining recent research and case studies and encouraging audience deliberation over hypothetical fact patterns, this session will provide an engaging insight into the effects these emerging employment issues may have on the workplace, as well as liability.

Session 3 - Professional Liability: The Expanding Liability of A&E Professionals and Risk Shifting in Design-Build Projects

• Speakers:

• Sarah Couillard, Markel Service, Incorporated

• Michelle Epstein, Parsons Corp.

• Jacqueline Pons-Bunney, Weil & Drage, APC

• Anthony Terranova, QBE Insurance

• Anthony Tessitore, Tressler, LLP

This panel explores practical considerations and pitfalls in the drafting and use of design-build contracts and the risk-shifting mechanisms incorporated in those documents. It will also examine recent developments in efforts to expand the liability of architects and engineers in design-build projects including recent cases and changes in the law with respect to fiduciary duty claims against design professionals. The session will also cover trends in the types of claims being made against design professionals and the complications that arise, including trending issues to insurance coverage claims being made by architects and engineers. These issues will be explored from the perspectives of insurance claims professionals, defense and coverage counsel, and in-house litigation counsel.

Session 3 - Professional Liability: The Unauthorized Practice of Law — Jeopardy Style

• Speakers:

• Deborah Bjes, Swiss Re

• Crystal Ivy, AmTrust Group

• Erin McCartney, Attorney Protective

• William Oberts, Tribler Orpett & Meyer, P.C.

• James Strong, ProAssurance Corporation

When can an attorney practice and/or provide legal advice when he or she is not admitted into a given jurisdiction? What steps must be taken to gain admission? Does it matter if the attorney works for a private firm or is in-house counsel? We will explore the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct and other applicable statutes in addressing these issues. This program will be presented in a Jeopardy style format with a Who Wants to be a Millionaire twist. Each presenter contestant will choose pertinent categories from an interactive Jeopardy board and provide questions to the answers. Contestants will also have the opportunity to poll the audience or phone an audience member. 

Break

Session 4 - D&O/Cyber: Data Breaches — Essential Knowledge for Corporate Counsel to Effectively Advise the Board

• Speakers:

• Daniel Garrie, JAMS

• Matthew McCabe, Marsh

• Douglas Meal, Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

• Anne Winner, Chubb

The panel will address the potential financial and reputational risks that security and data breach issues pose, as well as the importance of educating and advising boards of directors and CEOs on cybersecurity risks and liability issues. Speakers will survey the current cyber regulatory landscape, including recent legislation in California, guidance from SEC, and ending federal legislation. It also examines what the board of directors of a company needs to know about the cyber security preparedness of their company in order to both protect from a wide-scale incident and mitigate the damage in the case of a breach. Panelists will discuss the importance of clear notification and governance in cyber security.
 

Session 4 - Med Mal: Putting out the Fires — Mediation Strategies and Tactics for Aging Services Claims

• Speakers:

• Sandra Bevans, MedPro Group

• Lindsay Boyd, Hiscox

• James Connors, Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles, LLP

• Alona Croteau, Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP

• Joe Spinola, Resolute Systems LLC

Session 4 - Professional Liability/Cyber: Hidden Cyber Risks That Will Consume Professionals by 2020

• Speakers:

• Sarah Courtman, Starr Adjustment Services, Inc.

• Monique Ferraro, Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection & Insurance Company

• Ilana Hanau, Segal McCambridge

• Michael Hinchen, Self Employed

• Rinat B. Klier Erlich, Zelms Erlich & Mack

The session addresses hidden cyber risks that we expect to see in near future for professionals. The panel will discuss the current risks the various types of professionals are expected to be battling with (real estate, design, lawyers and insurance professionals), the role of compliance in battling these risks, and the grappling with greater frequency and severity of incidents. The session will touch on data breaches, business interruption, intellectual property theft and cyber-extortion. It will explore more risk management,  changes in managing the business, better ways to communicate, and how to best manage the claims, defend them and the effect on insurance coverage. 

Session 4 - Professional Liability: Alexa — Draft a Motion for Summary Judgment

• Speakers:

• Kimberly Johnston, Verisk

• Daniel McCune, Childs McCune LLC

• Frances O'Meara, Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP

• David Rock, Trium Cyber

Legal and ethical mandates now require that professionals be competent in technology. The ABA recently updated its Model Rules of Professional Responsibility to include keeping abreast of benefits and risks associated with relevant technology. But what is enough and what is too much? This panel will explore the ethical obligations for professionals in understanding technology and the use of AI or technology in our practices.

Session 4 - Professional Liability: Pragmatic Issues on Settlement Versus Trial for Legal Malpractice Cases

• Speakers:

• Philip Grennan, Wood Smith Henning & Berman LLP

• Reed Millsaps, DWF Claims

• Cristina Yannucci, Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, LLP

• Jessica Zimmerman (dup), Sedgwick

In addition to the usual issues of liability and damages involved in the defense of any legal malpractice lawsuit, there are also some unique pragmatic issues that need to be addressed — specifically, the decision to defend through trial or potentially move towards a settlement can cause tension between the defendant insured attorney and the carrier. Often the carrier and the attorney client view the risks involved in a case quite differently. Both the carrier and the retained defense counsel need to be cognizant of these differences and deal with them properly. For instance, while the defendant insured attorney may want to aggressively defend the case and make it as difficult as possible for the plaintiff and his or her attorney, as facts are developed, the carrier and the retained defense counsel may recognize significant risks in the case. Dealing with these differing perspectives can be difficult. If one does proceed to trial and a bad result occurs, the fallout from the trial result can also raise issues, such as why the poor result occurred and/or should the verdict be appealed. This session will address those pragmatic concerns between the parties involved in the defense of a legal malpractice lawsuit.
 

Cocktail Reception