For The Defense, July 2010 - DRI Today

By the time you are reading this, the Professional Liability Committeewill be right in the middle of one of its busiest and most excitingyears in recent history. We will likely have surpassed 800 membersfor the first time ever, and hopefully will be rapidly approaching 900members or more. Our members are writing,speaking, and contributing to the overall progressof both the committee and DRI at unprecedentedlevels. Where to begin?We are fresh off our participation in the 2010Insurance Coverage and Claims Institute (ICCI),where we presented a dedicated professional liabilityprogram track—a first for our committee.Our members helped educate approximately 400 attendeeson topics including insurance agent/brokerliability, legal malpractice of defense counsel, technologyerrors and omissions, and social media. TheICCI program was a huge success by all accounts,with many folks saying it was the best DRI programthey have ever attended. We hope to have this outstandingopportunity once again in 2011.In October the committee will be very busy atthe Annual Meeting in San Diego. We will be presentinga fascinating and timely seminar during theAnnual Meeting’s general session titled “Who Letthe Data Out?” This panel discussion will explorethe world of data breach and technology errors andomissions, examine a real world data breach fromthe perspective of a company’s general counsel, addresspotential liability from the perspective of outsidedefense counsel, and overview the managementof data breach risk from an insurance standpoint.Defense lawyers will be particularly interested inthe ethical and professional liability concerns ofallowing unauthorized access to confidential clientinformation. The panel will be moderated byCommittee Vice Chair Dan Meyer, and will includelongtime steering committee member Shari ClaireLewis. The panel will also feature David Molitano,Vice President of Technology E&O for OneBeaconProfessional Partners, and Robert Robinson, VicePresident and General Counsel for BancTec, Inc.You will not want to miss this program.While technology errors and omissions are currentlyhot topics in the professional liability industry,the roots of our committee are planted firmly inthe defense of more traditional professional classes:lawyers, accountants and insurance agents to namejust a few. At our committee business meeting atthe Annual Meeting in San Diego, steering committeemember Rinat B. Klier-Erlich and her partnerFredric W. Trester will be presenting a highlyrelevant program about the types of claims madeand damages sought against real estate professionals—anothertraditional class our members oftenrepresent. With the real estate market still verymuch in flux, professionals throughout the chainare exposed to E&O claims: real estate brokers,mortgage brokers, appraisers, escrow officers, andeven attorneys. This program is sure to appeal to abroad range of our committee members.On another programming front, we are activelyplanning our committee’s first webinar, which wehope to have scheduled before the end of the year,and expect to follow it up with a series of webinarsthroughout 2011. Stay tuned for details of what weexpect to be cutting edge programs.Our committee has always produced prolific authors,and under the stewardship of PublicationsChair Ted Eberspacher we have never had so manyopportunities for our members to be published. Ourquarterly newsletter is going strong, and we alsonow contribute a feature article for The Voice ona quarterly basis. Along with this month’s editionof For The Defense, we will be publishing anothergroup of articles in the January 2011 edition as well.In this month’s issue, Scott Braun and JennaBuda, as well as Shari Claire Lewis, offer articlesaddressing the attorney- client privilege in therespective contexts of retained coverage counseland in-house corporate counsel. As lawyers, we canall benefit from learning more about the attorneyclientprivilege, and its application in variousnuanced settings. In other articles, Jeffrey Jamesdiscusses the use of expert testimony in legal malpracticecases, and Susan Wassell addresses legalmalpractice claims arising from multiple defendantlitigation. As you might imagine, the defense oflegal malpractice claims has always been a primaryfocus of our committee, and we thank the authorsfor contributing these informative articles.The Professional Liability Committee is growing,its members are dedicated, and the leadershipis strong. We have big plans for the rest of the yearand well beyond. If you are interested in the area ofprofessional liability defense and want to be a partof our dynamic group, I encourage you to join us.Opportunities for education, networking, and professionaldevelopment abound. Please contact medirectly if you would like to get involved. I look forwardto seeing you all in San Diego!For The Defense n July 2010 n 63