Lorelie S. Masters
Hunton Andrews Kurth LLPBusiness Regulation & Regulated Industries
ABOUT
A nationally recognized insurance coverage litigator, Lorie handles all aspects of complex, commercial litigation and arbitration for policyholders. Chambers-ranked and recognized as a “top 10 Super Lawyer,” Lorie has advised clients on a wide range of liability coverages, including insurance for environmental, employment, directors and officers, fiduciary, property damage, cyber, and other liabilities. She also handles various types of first-party property insurance claims, including claims under boiler and machinery, business-interruption, contingent business-interruption, extra expense, disability and other related coverages. Most recently, she has advised clients in a variety of industries on COVID-19 losses under a wide variety of first-party property and business-interruption policies and “package policies.” She advises clients on how to structure insurance programs effectively and on captive insurance and other alternative risk-transfer mechanisms.
Lorie writes and speaks extensively on insurance coverage, technology, and litigation. Lorie has handled and tried cases in state and federal trial and appellate courts across the country and in arbitrations in the United States and abroad. At issue in these cases typically have been millions of dollars of insurance coverage for products and environmental liability, silicone gel breast implant claims, and other types of liability. Most recently, she has obtained multi-million dollar settlements under D&O, Side-A Only D&O and E&O policies. She served as lead trial counsel for policyholder in an action enforcing CGL insurance coverage for the then-largest property damage class action settlement ever. The National Law Journal called that jury’s verdict one of the “most significant jury verdicts” of the year. She has also handled many other matters in litigation, arbitration, and settlement negotiations, recovering, collectively, billions of dollars for her clients. She has handled high-stakes insurance issues for individuals, enforcing disability, health and property insurance.
Lorie is co-author of Insurance Coverage Litigation, an in-depth legal treatise first published by Aspen Law & Business in 1997 and updated annually. She co-authored a second book, entitled Liability Insurance in International Arbitration: The Bermuda Form, which won the 2012 Book Prize from the British Insurance Law Association for “outstanding contributions to the literature on insurance,” and is recognized as the seminal work on the issue of Bermuda Form arbitration. She was invited in 2010 to serve as an Adviser to the American Law Institute’s (“ALI”) RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW, LIABILITY INSURANCE, and served in that capacity until the publication of the RESTATEMENT in 2019.
A partner in the insurance coverage practice, Lorie’s clients say she “is very good at explaining complicated issues, and then distilling them for commercial use,” according to Chambers USA 2016, which ranks her in the upper echelons of her practice nationwide. She also was named a Top Ten Super Lawyer in DC for 2014 and 2015, among other recognitions.
In addition to her legal practice, she is active in diversity and inclusion matters and has represented many individuals and groups pro bono, including policyholders denied health care coverage and victims of human trafficking. In 2007, she obtained one of the first money judgments in the country under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, after a trial in the federal court in the District of Columbia. She is Chair of the Board of the Human Trafficking Legal Center which helps survivors of human trafficking obtain justice and trains pro bono lawyers to advise and represent survivors.
Lorie has served on the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association (ABA) and, from 2016-2018, as Treasurer of the DC Bar Foundation, the largest funder of legal services in the DC area. She is very proud of her service in 2007-2008 as President of the Women’s Bar Association of the District of Columbia (“WBA”) and her role in helping to organize the WBA’s centennial celebrations in 2016-2017. She helped to found the American College of Coverage Counsel and served as its second President in 2013-2014. She served as national Policyholder Chair of the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee of the ABA Section of Litigation, 2000-2003. From 2006-2010, she served on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals’ Committee on Admissions.
Lorie is admitted to practice in the US Supreme Court, US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, US District Court for the District of Columbia, US District Court for the District of Maryland, US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, and the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. She ran for attorney general in the District of Columbia’s first-ever election for that position in 2014.
