Walker Wilcox Matousek LLP

During his career, Gary Lockwood has worked on matters involving business insurance, including directors’ and officers’ liability, other professional liability, general liability, umbrella, and environmental impairment liability. With respect to directors’ and officers’ liability coverage issues in particular, he provides a unique perspective based upon his involvement in drafting many of the D&O coverage forms currently in use. Gary’s practice includes coverage analysis and coverage litigation, and he has represented many of the largest liability insurers in the United States, as well as insurers and reinsurers in England, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, and the People’s Republic of China.

Gary also has extensive experience with reinsurance coverage disputes, having represented ceding insurers as well as reinsurers and retrocessionares in a number of high-profile cases. In addition, he has managed a wide array of insurance programs ranging from a regional school board legal liability program to a nationwide environmental impairment liability program with aggregate reserves approaching $1 billion. Gary also has experience working with self-insurance trusts and pools.

Another important aspect of Gary’s practice has been defense of non-medical professionals, including lead counsel roles in a number of negligence lawsuits against architects and other design professionals. His appellate work has included wins in the Seventh and Ninth Circuits of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Gary was chair of the former Business Insurance Committee of the American Bar Association’s Business Law Section. He is also a member of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS) and former member and chair of PLUS’ Midwestern Chapter Board of Directors. He is admitted as a Member of the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation, an honor limited to one-third of one percent of the lawyers in each state. Gary has also completed training as a mediator and has received his Certificate of Training from DePaul University.

Gary has authored several articles on various aspects of business insurance, including directors’ and officers’ liability insurance, other types of professional liability insurance, environmental law, and reinsurance law. He has also been a speaker on issues of professional liability at panels and seminars throughout the United States. He is listed in “Who’s Who in America,” “Who’s Who in the Midwest,” “Who’s Who in American Law,” and “Who’s Who in The World.” Gary has also been declared an Illinois “Super Lawyer” for 2006 and 2009 and he is listed as one of the top insurance/reinsurance coverage lawyers in The Leading Lawyers Network, a division of Law Bulletin Publishing Company.

Experience

Representative cases:

• Secured summary judgment for a U.S. insurer in coverage litigation over a directors’ and officers’ liability insurance policy’s prior and pending litigation exclusion and date of claim language; and successfully argued the appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit;

• Secured summary judgment for a U.S. insurer in a coverage dispute over whether or not a pollution exclusion in a public officials liability policy applied to noxious odors arising from a city’s waste treatment facility; and successfully argued the appeal in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit;

• Represented European reinsurers in a dispute involving amounts paid under a bankers’ professional liability insurance policy, where he showed that a significant portion of the amounts paid were for claims attaching to an Extended Reporting Period on the original policy and that the extension of coverage was never noticed to the reinsurers and the additional premium was not paid, resulting in a settlement that saved the clients over $1 million;

• Represented European and Asian reinsurers with respect to an environmental impairment liability insurance program with over 400 claims and losses estimated at close to $1 billion. Gary’s efforts in coverage litigation in Illinois state and federal courts, and in English courts, led to the cases being settled by commutation of the reinsurance contracts for a fraction of the estimated losses;

• Represented an architect in defense of a lawsuit stemming from a construction accident at a building site in Chicago, in which the underlying plaintiff, a construction worker, had fallen several stories when the steel beam on which he was walking gave way and he became a quadriplegic. Shortly after the trial began, Gary’s client was offered and took a nominal settlement.

Languages

German


Walker Wilcox Matousek LLP 225 W. Washington Street, Suite 2400 \| Chicago, IL 60606 \| Phone: 312.244.6700 \| Fax: 312.244.6800/6801 South Tower Pennzoil Place, 711 Louisiana Street, Suite 3100 \| Houston, Texas 77002 \| Phone: 713.654.8001 \| Fax: 713.654.8818