Volume 38, Number 6, JUNE 2011
Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Ehrlich
Associate Editors Joseph Barrett, Mary Bennett, Christa Haggai-Ramey, Joan Kessler, James Kristy, Beverly Pine, Norman Pine, Rahul Ravipudi, Linda Rice, Ibiere Seck, Geraldine Weiss
Editors-in-Chief Emeriti Kevin Meenan, William Daniels, Steven Stevens, Christine Spagnoli, Thomas Stolpman
Managing Editor Cindy Cantu
cindy@caala.org
Copy Editor Eileen Goss
Publisher Richard Neubauer
Art Director David Knopf
Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles President Philip Michels
Treasurer Joseph Barrett
President-Elect Michael Alder
First Vice President Lisa Maki
Second Vice President Geoffrey Wells
Secretary David Ring
Immediate Past President Garo Mardirossian
Executive Director Stuart Zanville
Board of Governors Mike Arias, Michael Armitage, Todd Bloomfield, John Blumberg, Michael Cohen, Scott Corwin, Carl Douglas, Ricardo Echeverria, Jeffrey Ehrlich, Mayra Fornos, Maryann Gallagher, Victor George, Steve Goldberg, Christa Haggai- Ramey, Genie Harrison, Steven Heimberg, Elizabeth Hernandez, David Hoffman, Arash Homampour, Neville Johnson, William Karns, James Kristy, Lawrence Lallande, Scott Marks, Shawn McCann, Jill McDonell, Gretchen Nelson, William Newkirk, Minh Nguyen, Thomas Peters, Linda Fermoyle Rice, David Rosen, Jeffrey Rudman, Ibiere Seck, Adam Shea, Carney Shegerian, Douglas Silverstein, Steven Stevens, Armen Tashjian, Geraldine Weiss, Jeff Westerman, Ronnivashti Whitehead, Andrew Wright, Daniel Zohar
Orange County Trial Lawyers Association
President Yoshiaki Kubota
President-Elect Douglas Schroeder
First Vice President Scott Cooper
Second Vice President Casey Johnson
Third Vice President Ted Wacker
Secretary Vincent Howard
Treasurer H. Shaina Colover
Parliamentarian Geraldine Ly
Immediate Past President Anne Andrews
Executive Director Janet Thornton
Board of Directors Melinda Bell, Gregory Brown, Brent Caldwell, Jonathan Dwork, Jerry Gans, Robert Gibson, Cynthia Craig, Kevin Liebeck, B. James Pantone, Christopher Purcell, Solange Ritchie, Sarah Serpa, Adina Stern, Kimberly Valentine, Dieter Zacher
Periodicals postage paid at Los Angeles, California.
Copyright © 2011 by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.
ADVOCATE (ISSN 0199-1876) is published monthly at the subscription rate of $50 for 12 issues per year by the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, 800 West Sixth Street, #700, Los Angeles, CA 90017 (213) 487-1212 Fax (213) 487-1224
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Contents Features:
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Insurance: Beyond policy limits In a damages suit, the amount recoverable is often limited by the defendant’s insurance limits. Making the right demand at the right
time is critical. Here’s how to get it right. Raymond Paul Johnson and Cory G. Lee
Trying an insurance bad-faith case to a jury From voir dire through closing argument, CAALA’s Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2010 provides your roadmap to success; includes a discussion of asking for punitive damages and bifurcation of attorneys’ fees. Ricardo Echeverria
Pattern-and-practice evidence in bad-faith cases How many times does it take for an insurer’s conduct to be reprehensible?
The author includes tips on how to get this information in discovery. Scott Glovsky
Title insurance: When defects in title go undetected The author looks at protecting buyers of real estate from the negligent research of the title company. Christian J. Garris
Anatomy of an ERISA case The procedural pitfalls of ERISA litigation create a minefield that has become a frustration to reaching the stated goals of the 1974 statute.
Said one judge, “ERISA is beyond redemption.” Corinne Chandler
The strange case of the UM/UIM arbitration There are many twists and turns in handling Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist arbitration. The author looks at the nuances in these cases and suggests a model for an agreement that the arbitrator apply certain statutes and rules. Barry P. Goldberg
Litigating individual disability-insurance bad-faith cases If the case isn’t eviscerated by ERISA, then the policy language
sets up its own challenges as the authors discuss. Frank N. Darras and Susan B. Grabarsky
Insurance coverage for intentional conduct? Insurance coverage may be available to innocent individual and corporate co-insureds, even when another insured or an officer or employee of the corporation engages in intentional misconduct. Kirk A. Pasich and Cassandra S. Franklin
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Submitting articles for publication: Check the annual editorial calendar at
www.theadvocatemagazine.com to see when your legal topic would be most appropriate. Articles on time sensitive matters are welcome throughout the year, as are opinion columns, humor pieces, human-interest stories, lifestyle and personality features. Send your article as a WordPerfect or Word document attachment to e-mail:
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Reprint permission: E-mail written request to Managing Editor Cindy Cantu:
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