Business leaders continually strive to strike an efficient, effective balance between pursuing ambitious goals and managing the accompanying risks. Yet, even with the soundest strategies, this delicate equilibrium can be suddenly jarred by a crisis that threatens business momentum, customer confidence or a company’s core financial foundation.
Wilson Elser has spent decades perfecting a sophisticated Crisis Management capability that insurers and their insureds can rely on during their most urgent and difficult challenges.
Wilson Elser has spent decades perfecting a sophisticated crisis management capability that insurers and their insureds can rely on during their most urgent and difficult challenges.
Our attorneys provide fast, well-coordinated responses to threats such as:
- Catastrophic events
- Product contaminations and recalls
- Cyber attacks
- Kidnap and ransom
Catastrophic Events
Wilson Elser attorneys provide swift, comprehensive support for clients in the event of catastrophes such as aviation and rail accidents, truck and bus crashes, elevator and escalator incidents, factory explosions and building collapses.
For several of our practices and in many key venues, Wilson Elser can assemble “go teams” comprising those attorneys and support personnel who are best equipped to handle the emerging crisis at hand. Team members become fully engaged, often within hours of the event and, when circumstances dictate, are on-site gathering the information and witness insights that can help clients manage investigatory demands and fortify potential future litigation defenses. We interview relevant parties and determine the facts of the incident, the potential need for specialized criminal attorney representation, hours or service issues, federal agency compliance concerns, safety violations and any other potential causation issues or concerns.
Should a crisis require our clients to face regulatory bodies, the media or the public anywhere in the country or around the world, we quite literally can be at their side, providing support and experienced guidance.
Product Contamination and Recalls
Wilson Elser’s Product Contamination & Recall attorneys provide insurers and their insureds with unmatched experience in analyzing claims based on the full spectrum of related policies, including:
- Accidental product contamination coverage
- Malicious product tampering coverage
- Adverse publicity coverage
- Government recall
- Third-party losses
Our practice attorneys have handled claims involving every conceivable type of food product throughout the United States and Canada. Representing clients as coverage counsel, coverage litigation defense counsel and/or monitoring counsel, we establish whether claims are covered and, if so, we quickly move forward to address the many considerations that impact their respective values. Moreover, with 24 strategically located offices throughout the United States, our firm is well positioned to render coverage opinions, provide litigation services and serve as monitoring counsel in virtually every market.
Cyber Attacks
For well over a decade, Wilson Elser’s core team of talented partners, ably assisted by associates and paralegals, has handled breach response and other sensitive situations arising from the misuse of computers and related technology.
Following reports of a breach, our practice attorneys begin a “triage” process designed to immediately contain exposure. Every breach has a distinctive set of characteristics and surrounding circumstances; our experience allows us to respond swiftly and categorically.
We regularly conduct forensic analysis, deploying experts specially chosen to enhance protection of privileged and confidential communications, determine the cause of the breach and identify what data is at risk. Results guide the implementation of measures designed to comply with legal obligations and prevent additional data intrusion.
Kidnap and Ransom
Wilson Elser’s Kidnap and Ransom (K&R) coverage practice has extensive experience representing insurers and reinsurers in this especially sensitive area of law. The team routinely handles high-profile matters for major companies with internationally dispersed employees. From kidnappings and detentions to emergency evacuation and repatriation, we have represented our clients as coverage counsel, coverage litigation defense counsel and monitoring counsel. The varied claims we have evaluated and litigated stemmed from incidents in the United States as well as in countries where systemic issues give frequent rise to K&R occurrences.
