Legal Commentary

Eugene Anderson, of New York-based Anderson Kill & Olick, passed away on July 30,  after complications arising from pneumonia. He is being remembered this week by many in our legal community.

Anderson founded the firm in 1969, and was dubbed by BusinessWeek as  "the dean of policyholder's attorneys," because he pioneered  influential approaches to insurance coverage litigation on behalf of policyholders, says the firm. He was  also was heavily involved in pro bono activities, and mentored "dozens of the nation's leading policyholder's attorneys," says the firm.

Babs Deacon, now director of consulting with Integreon, worked with him for four years. "Gene was an amazing lawyer, a pioneer in Insurance coverage law but also in legal automation. He realized that if his firm was going up against the same insurance firms, case after case, he should gather as much information about them as possible," she recalls. "He started a process, 20 years ago, to index and scan all insurance policies, expert witness testimony, etc." He created a special group at the firm to handle the tasks, and even stored insurance company ads from magazines, she recalls.

She recalls one particular trial:  Anderson Kill represented a company that owned a used tire dump that had burned down, and St. Paul Insurance had refused to pay on the policy. So the team went  into the database and found an advertisement that St. Paul had run -- that featured a tire dump, and extolled the virtues of its great coverage.

"The Anderson Kill team showed the ad to the jury. Victory!"