Neil successfully counsels his clients on the complexities of buying and maintaining insurance and using insurance as part of an overall risk-management program. Chair of the firm’s Insurance – Policyholders group, Neil focuses on insurance recovery and dispute resolution, risk management, loss prevention, and cost containment. His clients include public and private companies, organizations, boards of directors, individual officers, and other policyholders.
Neil is an elected fellow of the American College of Coverage Counsel, the preeminent association of approximately 400 U.S. and Canadian lawyers who practice in the area of insurance coverage. Neil is one of over 150 fellows who represent the interests of policyholders. He also currently serves as co-chair of the organization’s Professionalism and Ethics Committee.
Neil assists clients in analyzing, negotiating, and enhancing a wide range of insurance policies and plans, including, for example:
- Directors' and officers' liability
- Errors and omissions/professional liability
- Employment practices liability
- Fiduciary liability
- Bankers professional liability and financial institution bonds
- Cyber liability, e-commerce, and privacy risks
- Commercial property
- Intellectual property insurance
- Construction insurance
- Transportation, transportation broker, and contingent cargo liability
In addition to counseling clients regarding ongoing and future insurance requirements, Neil helps policyholders resolve all types of insurance coverage disputes, through negotiation, litigation, and other forms of dispute resolution, including mediation, arbitration, and settlement.
He has successfully obtained insurance coverage for defendants involved in a variety of class actions and other complex lawsuits. For example, when the former CEO of a bankrupt Chicago area public company was named in a shareholder class action brought by the bankruptcy estate – alleging securities fraud and breach of fiduciary duty, and seeking to recover damage claims totaling nearly $400 million – Neil helped his client obtain effective insurance coverage.
He regularly counsels boards of directors and officers of nonprofit entities in matters of governance, fiduciary duty, strategic planning, leadership development, and other matters.
Neil also practices extensively in the area of lawyer’s professional liability, which includes counseling lawyers and law firms on professional responsibility and ethics matters. He has served as an expert witness in this area, and he speaks and writes extensively on the subject.
Neil also has significant insurance and risk management experience in the construction industry. On the transactional side, Neil is well-versed in the full range of construction-related insurance policies, including CGL, workers' compensation, professional liability, wrap up (OCIP and CCIP), builder's risk, owner's protective, subcontractor default, project specific, green building, technology risk, and cybersecurity. On the disputes side, he represents owners, contractors, subcontractors, and other types of insureds in claims for design errors, construction and engineering defects, catastrophic loss, and claims and losses directly or indirectly related to construction.
As a regular speaker at industry and legal seminars around the country – and author of articles and educational materials for dozens of conference training sessions – Neil has given presentations on issues as diverse as securities litigation, directors’ and officers’ insurance, change-of-control situations, errors and omissions insurance, non-traditional insurance options, cyber liability, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, negotiating policy provisions and considerations, maximizing insurance coverage, recovering e-commerce and Internet claims, and directors’ and officers’ liability in consumer class action matters. Neil has also taught insurance law at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
While in law school, Neil earned awards for achieving highest grades in Legal Writing and Research, Federal Income Taxation of Corporations and Shareholders, and Business Bankruptcy. He also served as Lead Articles Editor for the Marquette Law Review.