As I discussed in this earlier post just last Friday, I am now running a series of posts, each to be published on Friday, covering five articles of interest that I didn’t have time to write about – or write enough about – during the week just ending. This past week was busy and full of interesting stories to write about, and I could have easily made this post Ten Favorites for Friday, instead of five, but then the alliteration would be missing. So here goes with this week’s Five Favorites for Friday.
- Lawyers cannot get enough of writing about and talking about fees, for a lot of reasons. See here, for instance. But for an ERISA lawyer, the topic has particular resonance, because of all the statutes with fee shifting provisions, I suspect fee awards arise more under ERISA than under just about any other statute, because of the ubiquity of benefit disputes. But to someone like me, who also litigates insurance bad faith disputes, fee award issues are particularly salient because in many states, including in my home state of Massachusetts, fee awards can be entered against insurers in bad faith cases. Here’s a great story on whether it’s proper for a trial court to consider the size of a firm seeking an award when determining the hourly rate to apply to a fee request.
- It’s cyber insurance all the time, on all channels, as well it should be. Cyber risks are central to many industries, are a primary and prominent insurer exposure, and are the focus of attention with retirement plans in particular. Here’s a great article on the current state of the cyber insurance market.
- Speaking of cyber, I am currently litigating a data breach dispute, and the offshoots over shifting the loss among multiple potentially responsible parties. On my usual home turf of ERISA litigation, cyber is the 800 pound elephant of liability staring at plan fiduciaries. They and their lawyers should all be conversant on the subject and if they are not, I cannot think of a better place to start learning about it than this webinar, scheduled for next week.
- While I understand the reasons why, subjectively, insurance seems boring to young professionals and recent graduates picking a career, objectively speaking that interpretation is just plain wrong. You want international travel and work? I have mediated and litigated coverage cases in Scotland and London, and litigated in Guam. Want to make an impact on climate change? The industry has been at the heart of the issue since before most, and remains focused on it as an existential crisis. I discussed these points here and here, among other places, for instance. Anyway, that’s a long way of saying it’s a wildly underrated career field, and this article provides a nice discussion of that point.
- Not too long ago, a jury awarded nearly $40 million to plaintiffs in an ERISA breach of fiduciary duty case. I prefer the written word, but if you are an auditory learner, this is a pretty good YouTube explainer on the case.