Jeffrey Gaylord

Partner

Jeffrey.Gaylord@lewisbrisbois.com

Jeff Gaylord is a partner in the New York office of Lewis Brisbois and co-chair of both the Firm’s Directors & Officers Coverage and Insurance Underwriting Services Practices. He has over 30 years of experience counseling leading insurance companies, as well as public and private corporations and their directors and officers, in connection with securities class actions, derivative actions, regulatory investigations and other emerging exposures. Jeff represents insurers with complex insurance coverage issues and disputes arising under directors and officers, financial institutions,  private equity, professional liability, lawyers and accountants, cyber, business interruption and general liability policies.

He has authored hundreds of coverage opinions, represented insurers in connection with many of the country’s largest financial frauds over the past three decades and successfully resolved, through negotiation or litigation, numerous high exposure D&O and other financial lines claims. He has participated in coverage litigation involving major D&O coverage issues, including policy placement, bump-up, insured v. insured, advancement of defense costs, disgorgement, bad faith, rescission and other issues arising out of financial restatements and misrepresentations in the application.

Jeff is frequently retained by the nation’s largest insurance companies to develop and draft new policy forms, endorsements and insurance products. He was the primary outside counsel retained by AIG to assist in drafting its market leading EDGE forms. He recently drafted an entire suite of financial lines policies for one of the world’s largest insurance companies.

Jeff is cognizant that coverage litigation is often not in the best interests of his insurance clients  from an ongoing business perspective. To that end, he often works with insurers  and their insureds to structure claims buy-out and alternative resolution strategies for both individual claims and multiple claims scenarios. He has particular expertise in the development of alternative dispute and claims management programs in the insolvency context, having worked with large law firms and their insurers to develop claims resolution strategies when such law firms are faced with insolvency and the inevitable influx of malpractice claims.

Jeff prides himself on the  longstanding relationships he has built with his clients and his commitment to provide well-reasoned, thoughtful and cost-effective advice from both a legal and practical business perspective.

Primary Area(s) of Practice

  • Directors & Officers Coverage
  • Insurance Underwriting Advisory Services
  • Directors & Officers Litigation

Additional Experience

Admissions

New York

Associations

  • New York State Bar Association, Business Law Section Executive Committee, Chair - Insurance Law Committee, 2002-2005
  • Professional Liability Underwriting Society

Awards & Honors

  • Lecturer, Management & Executive Liability Insurance in Bankruptcy, New York State Bar Association, Business Law Section, Fall Meeting, 2001
  • Chair, Proposed Federal Regulation of Insurance, New York State Bar Association, Fall Meeting, 2004

Education

Syracuse University College of Law,

Juris Doctor, cum laude, 1989

  • Law Review, Executive Editor; Editor, Syndicus

Hobart College

Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, 1983

Publications

  • Author, Trees in the Internal Affairs Forest- Tender Offers in the Wake of CTS, Syracuse University College of Law, Law Review, Vol. 39, No. 3
  • Lewis Brisbois D&O Newsletter