Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Aditya Bamzai is a professor of law at the University of Virginia. He teaches administrative law, civil procedure, computer crime and conflicts of law, and he has written about these and related subjects. He has argued cases relating to the separation of powers and national security in the U.S. Supreme Court, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, D.C. Circuit and other federal courts of appeals. From 2019 to 2021, he served as a Member of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, a federal agency charged with ensuring that the government’s national security efforts are balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties. Before entering the academy, Bamzai was an attorney-adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, and an appellate attorney in both private practice and for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. Earlier in his career, he was a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law and Albert Clark Tate, Jr., Professor of Law, University of Virginia School of Law
Professor Saikrishna Prakash’s scholarship focuses on separation of powers, particularly executive powers. He teaches Constitutional Law, Foreign Relations Law and Presidential Powers at the Law School.
Prakash’s most recent book, “The Living Presidency: An Originalist Argument Against Its Ever-Expanding Powers,” was published by Harvard Belknap Press in 2020. He also authored “Imperial from the Beginning: The Constitution of the Original Executive” (Yale University Press, 2015). The former book focuses on the modern presidency while the latter considers the presidency of the Founders.
Prakash has authored over 75 law review articles. Among them are “Of Synchronicity and Supreme Law” in the Harvard Law Review, “The Indefensible Duty to Defend” in the Columbia Law Review, and “50 States, 50 Attorneys General and 50 Approaches to the Duty to Defend” and “The Executive Power Over Foreign Affairs” in the Yale Law Journal.
Prakash has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. At the request of Democrats and Republicans, he has testified before Congress on matters of presidential removal, the Mueller Report and how Congress might better check the presidency. He is currently a Miller Center Senior Fellow. In 2015, he received the Roger Traynor award for faculty scholarship. In the same year, he received an honorable mention from the American Society of Legal Writers for his book “Imperial from the Beginning.” He has given named lectures at William & Mary Law School, Princeton University and Toledo Law School, and keynote addresses at several conferences.
Prakash majored in economics and political science at Stanford University. At Yale Law School, he served as senior editor of the Yale Law Journal and received the John M. Olin Fellowship in Law, Economics and Public Policy. He subsequently clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court. After practicing in New York for two years, he served as a visiting professor at the University of Illinois College of Law and as an associate professor at Boston University School of Law. He then spent several years at the University of San Diego School of Law as the Herzog Research Professor of Law. Prakash has been a visiting professor at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago. He also has served as a James Madison Fellow at Princeton University and Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution of War & Peace at Stanford University.
Partner and Co-Chair, Constitutional and Appellate Law Practice Group, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Allyson N. Ho is a partner in the Dallas office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP and co‐chair of the Firm’s nationwide Appellate and Constitutional Law practice group.
Mrs. Ho is “undoubtedly one of the premier appellate lawyers in the United States” (Chambers). She has presented over 100 oral arguments in federal and state courts nationwide, including multiple high‐stakes cases on behalf of business before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Her most significant winning arguments include a U.S. Supreme Court reversal worth billions of dollars for unionized employers in the Sixth Circuit; a U.S. Supreme Court reversal limiting the power of federal regulators; a multi‐billion dollar environmental win in the Fifth Circuit; a multi‐billion dollar commercial victory for the founder of a technology company in the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court; a billion dollar environmental win in the Houston Court of Appeals; a nine‐figure commercial victory in the Corpus Christi Court of Appeals; and a nine‐figure arbitration win in the Fifth Circuit.
Among her numerous accolades, Mrs. Ho is one of only a small group of appellate lawyers nationwide, and the only one in Texas, to be nationally ranked by Chambers every year for the past ten years (2012‐21). She is also one of the few appellate lawyers nationwide to be named to the BTI Client Service All‐Stars List, an honor bestowed by the corporate counsel community for lawyers “who stand above all the others in delivering the absolute best in client service.” She is also routinely named as a leading appellate lawyer by Benchmark, The Best Lawyers in America®, The Legal 500, Texas Super Lawyers, and D Magazine.
Mrs. Ho has received the Gregory S. Coleman Outstanding Appellate Lawyer Award (Texas Bar Foundation, June 22, 2018), been named a “Distinguished Leader” (Texas Lawyer, Sep. 1, 2017) and “Appellate MVP” (Law360, Nov. 23, 2015), and been recognized on the “Appellate Hot List” (National Law Journal, Nov. 16, 2015). In addition, she has been profiled in “Texas Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 2, 2021), “Texas Appellate Power Couple” (Texas Lawbook, January 7, 2021), “Litigators of the Week” (The American Lawyer, May 8, 2020), “Litigation Powerhouse” (Law360, Aug. 10, 2016), “Supreme Court Insider” (National Law Journal, July 21, 2016), “Supreme Court Specialists, Mostly Male, Dominated Arguments This Term” (National Law Journal, May 11, 2016), “Attorney of the Year Finalist” (Texas Lawyer, Nov. 2, 2015), “Litigation Department of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 1, 2015), “Employment Group of the Year” (Law360, Jan. 13, 2015), “A Supreme Month: Lawyer Credits Preparedness in Ability to Argue Two U.S. High Court Cases in Three Weeks” (Texas Lawyer, Dec. 8, 2014), “High Court Debuts for Two Lawyers” (National Law Journal, Nov. 3, 2014), “Women in Business Awards” (Dallas Business Journal, Aug 29, 2014), “Litigation Departments of the Year” (Texas Lawyer, June 2, 2014), “Winning Women” (Texas Lawyer, Aug. 22, 2011), and “High court practitioners: increasingly diverse” (National Law Journal, June 6, 2011).
Federal and State Appellate Practice
Mrs. Ho has argued a series of high stakes, landmark cases on behalf of the business community before the U.S. Supreme Court. National Law Journal called her a “Veteran SCOTUS Advocate” in the “upper echelons of Supreme Court practice.” Law360 named her a “Supreme Court Star” and “one of the nation’s preeminent appellate lawyers.” And EmpiricalSCOTUS.com ranked her among “the most successful attorneys that currently practice before the Court.” Mrs. Ho once argued two significant business cases before the Court within the span of 21 days—including a “significant ruling for employers” that “paved a new path for companies paying millions of dollars in retiree health care benefits” (Law360), as well as a landmark administrative law dispute in which “several justices agreed with Ho’s contention that SCOTUS should revisit and overrule its own precedent” (Law360). She also prevailed against the EEOC in a case that the employment defense bar called “good news for employers across the country.” And in “the most important patent case in modern history” according to patent law experts, her argument before the Court was credited for “pick[ing] up two votes that pundits thought unreachable.”
She has appeared before every federal court of appeals in the country, including en banc arguments before the Fourth and Sixth Circuits. She has successfully represented business clients in every circuit, including the First (Pruco Life Insurance Company), Second (Swiss Federation; Rite Aid), Third (Johnson & Johnson), Fourth (Genex Services), Fifth (United Space Alliance LLC; Elliott Co.; MERSCORP; 24 Hour Fitness USA, Inc.; Stream Energy; Health Management Systems), Sixth (Deutsche Bank; American Airlines; M&G Polymers), Seventh (Expedia), Eighth (Cotter), Ninth (Boeing; JP Morgan Chase Bank), Tenth (Mitchell International), Eleventh (AstraZeneca), D.C. (FedEx), and Federal (Repros Therapeutics) Circuits.
In addition, Mrs. Ho regularly appears in state appellate courts across the country. She has argued numerous cases in the Texas Supreme Court, Texas appellate courts in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Eastland, and state appellate courts in Arizona, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, and West Virginia, prevailing on behalf of Ford Motor Company, PepsiCo, International Paper, Tenet, GameStop, Deutsche Bank, and Unit.
Government and Public Service Experience
Mrs. Ho has a distinguished record of experience at the highest levels of the federal government. She served as Special Assistant to President George W. Bush, Counselor to Attorney General John Ashcroft, and law clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor of the U.S. Supreme Court and Judge Jacques L. Wiener Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Her record of public service also includes appointments to various boards and commissions. Among the most notable are her election as a member of the Administrative Conference of the United States, a trustee of the United States Supreme Court Historical Society, and a trustee of the Texas Supreme Court Historical Society. She is also vice chair of the Federal Judicial Evaluation Committee, appointed by U.S. Senators John Cornyn and Ted Cruz to evaluate potential appointments of all federal judges and U.S. Attorneys in Texas, and has previously served on the U.S. Magistrate Judge Merit Selection Panel for the Northern District of Texas.
Other Background Information
An active pro bono litigator, Mrs. Ho works most frequently with the First Liberty Institute and as amicus counsel for the State and Local Legal Center, the National Organization for Victim Assistance, and the National Crime Victim Law Institute. She is a frequent public speaker and active member of the Federalist Society, the American Law Institute, and the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board.
Mrs. Ho graduated from Duke University magna cum laude with a B.A. in English, Rice University with an M.A. and Ph.D. in English Literature, and the University of Chicago Law School with high honors. She was a member of the Law Review and Order of the Coif. She and her husband Jim, a federal judge, have a twin daughter and son.
United States District Judge, United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida
On December 20, 2019, Raag Singhal received his judicial commission to serve on the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Judge Singhal is the first Asian American in history to serve as an Article III judge in the jurisdiction of the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Georgia and Florida).
Immediately prior to becoming a federal judge, Judge Singhal spent eight years as a State Circuit Court Judge in Broward County, Florida, having been appointed by then-Governor Rick Scott in 2011. During that period of time, Singhal served, at times, in the Criminal, Civil and Mental Health divisions and was fortunate enough to sit as an Associate Judge on Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal on four occasions.
As a lawyer, Singhal gained experience at a civil litigation firm followed by three years as an Assistant State Attorney. After that, Singhal ran a successful criminal defense practice in Fort Lauderdale for eighteen years. During that time, he handled more than two hundred jury trials including thirty first-degree murder cases.
Judge Singhal has had leadership roles in many law-related groups. He is past-President of the Broward Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Stephen H. Booher Chapter of the American Inns of Court. He was on the Board of Directors of the Broward County Bar Association, and is a frequent speaker at events for various local Bar groups such as the Asian Pacific American Bar Association and the Federalist Society. Singhal was also Associate Dean of the Florida College for Advanced Judicial Studies upon his elevation to the federal court system.
Judge Singhal received his law degree from Wake Forest University School of Law in 1989 where he was very active in Moot Court activities, and was on the winning team of the J. Braxton Craven National Moot Court Competition (4th Amendment). He received his undergraduate degree in Political Science from Rice University in 1986.
Trial Lawyer, Bennett Legal
Charles Bennett is the driving force behind Bennett Legal, a nationally recognized law firm specializing in winning Personal Injury cases. He is one of the nation’s top trial attorneys and consultants. He is invited to speak and teach nationwide, educating lawyers on tactics, tips, and procedures that empower them to take on the insurance companies and get significantly improved results. Charles has secured record-breaking results in a variety of categories, including: commercial/18-wheeler crashes, wrongful deaths with a specialty in negligent landlord cases, traumatic brain damage cases, motor vehicle crashes, and workplace injuries.
Charles is highly regarded among his peers as a top lawyer in his field. Whenever other trial lawyers face complex cases and need guidance, they turn to Charles Bennett for his expert advice. He has gained extensive knowledge and experience as a principal of Trial Structure LLC, an educational corporation that catered specifically to trial lawyers. He worked on thousands of cases with a diverse range of lawyers across the nation. He is known as the “lawyer’s lawyer” because of his reputation for trial skills and collaberation. Lawyers often partner with him on their difficult cases to maximize the results.
Charles is now the captain of the Justice College, an institution whose mission is to empower lawyers to face billion-dollar insurance companies without feeling overwhelmed. Charles and the instructors at the Justice College form a special forces unit of trial excellence capable of defeating any insurance team they face. The Justice College graduates become lifelong members of a tribe that share experiences to help the community stay at the top of their game and increase case value.
Charles is a cum laude graduate of SMU Dedman School of Law. Before pursuing law, he had an outstanding career as a college basketball player at Midwestern State University, where he exhibited excellent leadership skills and athleticism. He played professional basketball in Europe. Playing at the professional level necessitates an incredible work ethic, the ability to cooperate and work as a team, and competitiveness that he now applies in the courtroom with spectacular success.
During law school, Charles’s amazed everyone with his initiative and capability by obtaining international arbitration awards for professional basketball players and agents. Recognized as a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and nominated as a Rising Star by Thomson Reuters, Charles’s legal acumen and commitment to excellence make him your best choice when you can’t afford to lose.
He and the Bennett Legal team actively engage in charitable events, reflecting their commitment to giving back and building meaningful connections within their local communities.
Partner, The Loree Law Firm
Philip J. Loree Jr. is the principal of The Loree Law Firm. He has 30 years of experience representing clients in complex disputes before federal and state trial and appellate courts, and arbitration panels, particularly in domestic and international arbitration-law, reinsurance, insurance, and other business and commercial disputes.
Before forming Loree & Loree in 2008 he practiced for nearly 17 years with one of the leading reinsurance practice groups in the United States, and was a litigation partner at two prominent New York City law firms, Rosenman & Colin LLP (now Katten-Muchin Rosenman LLP) and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. When Philip J. Loree Sr. retired from the practice of law in 2020, Philip J. Loree Jr. (“Mr. Loree” or “Loree”) continued the practice of Loree & Loree as The Loree Law Firm.
Mr. Loree has extensive experience arbitrating and litigating matters involving nearly every significant, reinsurance-related issue, including statutory and GAAP reinsurance accounting; transfer of insurance risk; independent auditor liability; fraud and rescission; London Market disputes; pool administration; insolvencies; follow-the- fortunes and follow-the-settlements; allocation of environmental liability and asbestos settlements; number of occurrences; trigger of coverage; multi-year policy issues; interpretation of reinsurance contracts and insurance policies; underwriting practices; reserving; set off; late notice; pre-hearing and pre-answer security; utmost good faith; bad faith; allocation and recovery of declaratory judgment expenses; and liability of intermediaries, managing general agents and brokers. He has also handled coverage litigation. He has counseled clients in contentious and non-contentious matters involving insurance coverage; regulatory compliance; Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) sanctions; reinsurance or insurance coverage for hurricane or storm damage; commutations; internal reinsurance reviews; contract and policy interpretation; Bermuda Form polices; property insurance, including insurance of a major oil rig; life reinsurance; life settlements; risk transfer; and other issues.
He has also represented and counseled clients in arbitration and litigation concerning commercial and business contracts, business torts, and fraudulent transfers.
As a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP he played key roles in a number of high-profile matters. He was a member of the four-partner trial team that obtained a $1.1 billion arbitration award in favor of a large, Japanese insurance and reinsurance company against Fortress Re, Inc., the manager of what was once one of the world’s largest aviation reinsurance pools. The arbitration concerned, among other things, Fortress Re’s accounting and reporting practices for financial reinsurance, and the $1.1 billion award is reputed to be the largest in the history of reinsurance arbitration.
He was also a key member of the team that represented the same Japanese insurance and reinsurance company in the related action it brought against Deloitte & Touche, LLP, the independent auditor of the Fortress Re Pool, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. That matter resulted in what was at the time reputed to be the second largest settlement of an independent auditor liability case in history. He and his former partners also represented a large, international reinsurance company in an internal review of finite reinsurance transactions that resulted in a restatement of earnings.
Mr. Loree also has extensive experience and expertise in practice and procedure under the Federal Arbitration Act, including matters arising under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and is a recognized commentator on U.S. arbitration-law matters. He has represented clients in numerous proceedings involving the enforcement of arbitration agreements and the confirmation and vacatur of arbitration awards arising out of industry, commercial, business contract, employment, and trust arbitrations.
He argued Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Home Ins. Co., 429 F.3d 640 (6th Cir. 2005), which rejected an evident partiality and excess of powers challenge to a favorable award he helped his client obtain. Considering for the first time what legal standard should apply to an evident partiality challenge based on a party-appointed arbitrator’s alleged failure to disclose purported conflicts of interest, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the challenging party’s argument that the district court applied the wrong standard. Courts, treatises and commentators have cited Nationwide extensively.
As a Loree & Loree partner he obtained on behalf of an English client partial vacatur of a reinsurance arbitration award in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The final award provided that the arbitration panel would remain constituted until the parties agreed that it should disband. When the arbitration panel would not disband after resolving all issues the parties submitted to it, his client petitioned the Court for an order vacating the retention-of-jurisdiction provision and confirming all other aspects of the award. He successfully convinced the Court to grant the petition in its entirety and hold that the retention-of-jurisdiction provision exceeded the arbitrators’ authority under Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal Arbitration Act. See KX Re Co. v. General Reinsurance Corp., 08 Civ. 7807 (SAS), 2008 WL 4904882 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 14, 2008).
Loree argued on behalf of the prevailing party Certain Underwriting Members of Lloyds of London v. State of Florida, Department of Financial Services, 892 F.3d 501, 503-04 (2d Cir. 2018) in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that “a party seeking to vacate an award under Section 10(a)(2) must sustain a higher burden to prove evident partiality on the part of an arbitrator who is appointed by a party and who is expected to espouse the view or perspective of the appointing party.” Id. “An undisclosed relationship between a party and its party- appointed arbitrator constitutes evident partiality, such that vacatur of the award is appropriate if[,]” explained the Court: “(1) the relationship violates the contractual requirement of disinterestedness [or another contractual requirement of the arbitration agreement]; or (2) it prejudicially affects the award.” 892 F.3d at 504 (citations omitted). (Read more about the case here.)
Loree is a prolific and skilled writer. He has written extensively on reinsurance and arbitration-related matters, and is the editor-in-chief of the Arbitration Law Forum (formerly the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum) (http://www.LoreeLawFirm.com/blog), which regularly posts online articles of interest concerning reinsurance and commercial and industry arbitration. In addition to the more than 300 articles he has published in The Arbitration Law Forum (and in its predecessor, the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum), he has written articles published in the New York Law Journal, the National Law Journal, U.S. Insurer, Global Reinsurer, and other publications, as well as several articles for Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, the newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (“CPR”).
Mr. Loree’s publications include:
CPR conducted in 2020 several video conference interviews of Loree, and his friend, former trial judge, and fellow arbitration-law practitioner, Richard D. Faulkner, about various controversial arbitration issues pertaining to matters the U.S. Supreme Court either has been asked to hear. Links to those videos can be accessed here.
Mr. Loree’s speaking engagements include:
The Loree Law Firm’s predecessor practice, Loree & Loree, was selected by Expertise.com out of a group of 1,763 persons or firms reviewed as one of Expertise.com’s top 18 “Arbitrators & Mediators” in New York City for 2019, and now for 2020. (See here and here.)
His comments on arbitration matters have been quoted by Global Arbitration Review, a London-based trade publication that covers international arbitration; Business Insurance, and U.S. Law Week.
Loree obtained his B.A. from New York University in 1986 and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1989, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, a Dean’s Merit Scholar, and a member of the Dean’s List.
He is admitted to practice in the State of New York, and in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits.
Trial Lawyer, Bennett Legal
Charles Bennett is the driving force behind Bennett Legal, a nationally recognized law firm specializing in winning Personal Injury cases. He is one of the nation’s top trial attorneys and consultants. He is invited to speak and teach nationwide, educating lawyers on tactics, tips, and procedures that empower them to take on the insurance companies and get significantly improved results. Charles has secured record-breaking results in a variety of categories, including: commercial/18-wheeler crashes, wrongful deaths with a specialty in negligent landlord cases, traumatic brain damage cases, motor vehicle crashes, and workplace injuries.
Charles is highly regarded among his peers as a top lawyer in his field. Whenever other trial lawyers face complex cases and need guidance, they turn to Charles Bennett for his expert advice. He has gained extensive knowledge and experience as a principal of Trial Structure LLC, an educational corporation that catered specifically to trial lawyers. He worked on thousands of cases with a diverse range of lawyers across the nation. He is known as the “lawyer’s lawyer” because of his reputation for trial skills and collaberation. Lawyers often partner with him on their difficult cases to maximize the results.
Charles is now the captain of the Justice College, an institution whose mission is to empower lawyers to face billion-dollar insurance companies without feeling overwhelmed. Charles and the instructors at the Justice College form a special forces unit of trial excellence capable of defeating any insurance team they face. The Justice College graduates become lifelong members of a tribe that share experiences to help the community stay at the top of their game and increase case value.
Charles is a cum laude graduate of SMU Dedman School of Law. Before pursuing law, he had an outstanding career as a college basketball player at Midwestern State University, where he exhibited excellent leadership skills and athleticism. He played professional basketball in Europe. Playing at the professional level necessitates an incredible work ethic, the ability to cooperate and work as a team, and competitiveness that he now applies in the courtroom with spectacular success.
During law school, Charles’s amazed everyone with his initiative and capability by obtaining international arbitration awards for professional basketball players and agents. Recognized as a member of The National Trial Lawyers Top 40 Under 40 and nominated as a Rising Star by Thomson Reuters, Charles’s legal acumen and commitment to excellence make him your best choice when you can’t afford to lose.
He and the Bennett Legal team actively engage in charitable events, reflecting their commitment to giving back and building meaningful connections within their local communities.
Partner, The Loree Law Firm
Philip J. Loree Jr. is the principal of The Loree Law Firm. He has 30 years of experience representing clients in complex disputes before federal and state trial and appellate courts, and arbitration panels, particularly in domestic and international arbitration-law, reinsurance, insurance, and other business and commercial disputes.
Before forming Loree & Loree in 2008 he practiced for nearly 17 years with one of the leading reinsurance practice groups in the United States, and was a litigation partner at two prominent New York City law firms, Rosenman & Colin LLP (now Katten-Muchin Rosenman LLP) and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP. When Philip J. Loree Sr. retired from the practice of law in 2020, Philip J. Loree Jr. (“Mr. Loree” or “Loree”) continued the practice of Loree & Loree as The Loree Law Firm.
Mr. Loree has extensive experience arbitrating and litigating matters involving nearly every significant, reinsurance-related issue, including statutory and GAAP reinsurance accounting; transfer of insurance risk; independent auditor liability; fraud and rescission; London Market disputes; pool administration; insolvencies; follow-the- fortunes and follow-the-settlements; allocation of environmental liability and asbestos settlements; number of occurrences; trigger of coverage; multi-year policy issues; interpretation of reinsurance contracts and insurance policies; underwriting practices; reserving; set off; late notice; pre-hearing and pre-answer security; utmost good faith; bad faith; allocation and recovery of declaratory judgment expenses; and liability of intermediaries, managing general agents and brokers. He has also handled coverage litigation. He has counseled clients in contentious and non-contentious matters involving insurance coverage; regulatory compliance; Office of Foreign Asset Control (“OFAC”) sanctions; reinsurance or insurance coverage for hurricane or storm damage; commutations; internal reinsurance reviews; contract and policy interpretation; Bermuda Form polices; property insurance, including insurance of a major oil rig; life reinsurance; life settlements; risk transfer; and other issues.
He has also represented and counseled clients in arbitration and litigation concerning commercial and business contracts, business torts, and fraudulent transfers.
As a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP he played key roles in a number of high-profile matters. He was a member of the four-partner trial team that obtained a $1.1 billion arbitration award in favor of a large, Japanese insurance and reinsurance company against Fortress Re, Inc., the manager of what was once one of the world’s largest aviation reinsurance pools. The arbitration concerned, among other things, Fortress Re’s accounting and reporting practices for financial reinsurance, and the $1.1 billion award is reputed to be the largest in the history of reinsurance arbitration.
He was also a key member of the team that represented the same Japanese insurance and reinsurance company in the related action it brought against Deloitte & Touche, LLP, the independent auditor of the Fortress Re Pool, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. That matter resulted in what was at the time reputed to be the second largest settlement of an independent auditor liability case in history. He and his former partners also represented a large, international reinsurance company in an internal review of finite reinsurance transactions that resulted in a restatement of earnings.
Mr. Loree also has extensive experience and expertise in practice and procedure under the Federal Arbitration Act, including matters arising under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, and is a recognized commentator on U.S. arbitration-law matters. He has represented clients in numerous proceedings involving the enforcement of arbitration agreements and the confirmation and vacatur of arbitration awards arising out of industry, commercial, business contract, employment, and trust arbitrations.
He argued Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co. v. Home Ins. Co., 429 F.3d 640 (6th Cir. 2005), which rejected an evident partiality and excess of powers challenge to a favorable award he helped his client obtain. Considering for the first time what legal standard should apply to an evident partiality challenge based on a party-appointed arbitrator’s alleged failure to disclose purported conflicts of interest, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the challenging party’s argument that the district court applied the wrong standard. Courts, treatises and commentators have cited Nationwide extensively.
As a Loree & Loree partner he obtained on behalf of an English client partial vacatur of a reinsurance arbitration award in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The final award provided that the arbitration panel would remain constituted until the parties agreed that it should disband. When the arbitration panel would not disband after resolving all issues the parties submitted to it, his client petitioned the Court for an order vacating the retention-of-jurisdiction provision and confirming all other aspects of the award. He successfully convinced the Court to grant the petition in its entirety and hold that the retention-of-jurisdiction provision exceeded the arbitrators’ authority under Section 10(a)(4) of the Federal Arbitration Act. See KX Re Co. v. General Reinsurance Corp., 08 Civ. 7807 (SAS), 2008 WL 4904882 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 14, 2008).
Loree argued on behalf of the prevailing party Certain Underwriting Members of Lloyds of London v. State of Florida, Department of Financial Services, 892 F.3d 501, 503-04 (2d Cir. 2018) in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that “a party seeking to vacate an award under Section 10(a)(2) must sustain a higher burden to prove evident partiality on the part of an arbitrator who is appointed by a party and who is expected to espouse the view or perspective of the appointing party.” Id. “An undisclosed relationship between a party and its party- appointed arbitrator constitutes evident partiality, such that vacatur of the award is appropriate if[,]” explained the Court: “(1) the relationship violates the contractual requirement of disinterestedness [or another contractual requirement of the arbitration agreement]; or (2) it prejudicially affects the award.” 892 F.3d at 504 (citations omitted). (Read more about the case here.)
Loree is a prolific and skilled writer. He has written extensively on reinsurance and arbitration-related matters, and is the editor-in-chief of the Arbitration Law Forum (formerly the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum) (http://www.LoreeLawFirm.com/blog), which regularly posts online articles of interest concerning reinsurance and commercial and industry arbitration. In addition to the more than 300 articles he has published in The Arbitration Law Forum (and in its predecessor, the Loree Reinsurance and Arbitration Law Forum), he has written articles published in the New York Law Journal, the National Law Journal, U.S. Insurer, Global Reinsurer, and other publications, as well as several articles for Alternatives to the High Cost of Litigation, the newsletter of the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (“CPR”).
Mr. Loree’s publications include:
CPR conducted in 2020 several video conference interviews of Loree, and his friend, former trial judge, and fellow arbitration-law practitioner, Richard D. Faulkner, about various controversial arbitration issues pertaining to matters the U.S. Supreme Court either has been asked to hear. Links to those videos can be accessed here.
Mr. Loree’s speaking engagements include:
The Loree Law Firm’s predecessor practice, Loree & Loree, was selected by Expertise.com out of a group of 1,763 persons or firms reviewed as one of Expertise.com’s top 18 “Arbitrators & Mediators” in New York City for 2019, and now for 2020. (See here and here.)
His comments on arbitration matters have been quoted by Global Arbitration Review, a London-based trade publication that covers international arbitration; Business Insurance, and U.S. Law Week.
Loree obtained his B.A. from New York University in 1986 and his J.D. from Brooklyn Law School in 1989, where he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Brooklyn Journal of International Law, a Dean’s Merit Scholar, and a member of the Dean’s List.
He is admitted to practice in the State of New York, and in the United States District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut, and the United States Courts of Appeals for the Second, Sixth, and Eighth Circuits.
Executive Director & Secretary, American Civil Rights Project
Dan Morenoff is the executive director at the American Civil Rights Project and an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
His work focuses on protecting and, where necessary, restoring the primacy of all Americans' shared civil rights against the identitarian alternative.
Before practicing law, Morenoff served on the legislative staff of Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX). Morenoff holds a B.A. from Columbia College of Columbia University in the City of New York and a J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School. He has also served as an officer or director of several community organizations in Dallas, Texas.
Legal Fellow and Manager, Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program, The Heritage Foundation
Zack is a Legal Fellow and Manager of the Supreme Court and Appellate Advocacy Program in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
He previously served for several years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Northern District of Florida. Prior to that, he spent two years as an associate in the Washington, D.C. office of Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which he joined after clerking for the Hon. Emmett R. Cox on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.
Smith received his undergraduate, master’s, and law degrees from the University of Florida. During law school, Smith served as the Editor in Chief of the Florida Law Review and served on the executive boards of several student organizations, including the UF Chapter of the Federalist Society.
Supreme Court Roundup
Virginia Student Chapter
Charlottesville, VARecent Supreme Court Decisions: Implications for the Business World
Charles Bennett, Philip J. Loree
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to shape arbitration law through a strict interpretation of the...
Recent Supreme Court Decisions: Implications for the Business World
Charles Bennett, Philip J. Loree
The U.S. Supreme Court continues to shape arbitration law through a strict interpretation of the...
Supreme Court Round-Up
New Mexico Student Chapter
Albuquerque, NMRacially Discriminatory Corporate Policies: Who's Liable?
Dan Morenoff
Laws banning discrimination have been on the books across America for more than a century...
U.S. Supreme Court October Term 2023 Review
Iowa Lawyers Chapter
Des Moines, IAOriginalism, Ballot Initiatives, and Abortion in Florida
Zack Smith
With its June 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, the U.S. Supreme Court...
Topics
Texas District Court Sets Aside FTC's Ban on Non-Compete Agreements
In Ryan LLC v. FTC, decided on August 20, the U.S. District Court for the...
Supreme Court Roundup At Sea with Hon. Raag Singhal
Maine Lawyers Chapter
Bailey Island, METopics
The Sixth Circuit Stays the FCC’s Latest Net Neutrality Flip-Flop
At last! There’s now a good chance the two decades-old “net neutrality” wars may be...