McDermott Will & Schulte, a global law firm

Clients appreciate Ryan’s courtroom experience ranging from jury and bench trials to Chapter 11 confirmation trials and appeals, as well as his track record of courtroom success. Ryan helped lead a McDermott team that resolved 10,116 cases by first responders, union workers, and volunteer debris removal personnel in In Re World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, and then recovered hundreds of millions of dollars in London market coverage for the City of New York’s captive insurer. Ryan’s work for the City’s captive insurer, which Congress formed after 9/11, earned him the prestigious Financial Times Innovative Lawyers award in 2012.

Ryan’s experience covers general liability, directors and officers, errors and omissions, employers’ practices liability, cyber, property (including business interruption), marine, inland marine, fiduciary, and crime coverages. Ryan also has reinsurance arbitration, class action defense, and multidistrict litigation experience. He has reconstructed lost insurance programs, tried missing policy cases, and underwritten first-of-kind coverages in the US and international insurance markets. Earlier in his career, Ryan was an editor of the American Bar Association’s Manual on Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation and was named one of five insurance lawyers in the United States to watch.

Ryan represents hedge funds and private equity clients with respect to insurance coverage issues in transactional settings and has helped to underwrite dozens of representations and warranties insurance, tax liability, tail, and other transactional insurance products. He represents two professional sports leagues regarding their league-wide player disability insurance programs and provides insurance counseling for McDermott’s globally acclaimed private family practice.

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• Represented the WTC Captive Insurance Company with respect to its defense and historic $712.5 million settlement of 10,116 bodily injury and medical monitoring lawsuits against the City of New York and 140 of its contractors arising out of the rescue, recovery and debris removal efforts at Ground Zero and elsewhere on and after September 11, 2001 (In re World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation, Nos. 21 MC 100, 21 MC 102, and 21 MC 103, US District Court for the Southern District of New York); also represented the WTC Captive with respect to its recovery of over $200 million from London Market Insurers following successful coverage litigation (WTC Captive Ins. Co., Inc. v. Liberty Mut. Fire Ins. Co., et al., No. 1:07-cv-01209, US District Court for the Southern District of New York)
• Represented a commercial insurer and served as liaison counsel to 12 other insurers of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles with respect to its $660 million settlement of 517 sexual abuse cases, the Archdiocese’s settlement with its insurers, and those insurers’ settlement with approximately thirty of the Archdiocese’s co-defendants and their insurers; lead reinsurance counsel for the commercial insurer with respect to its cessions arising from the settlement (The Clergy Cases I, Judicial Council Coordination Proceeding No. 4286, Los Angeles Superior Court)
• Represented a commercial insurer with respect to a successful petition for writ of mandamus arising out of a failed mediation of 90 clergy sexual abuse cases against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange [County, California] (Travelers Cas. & Surety Co. v. Superior Court, 126 Cal. App. 4th 1131 (2005), cert. denied, No. S132595 (Cal. 2005))
• Represented a national healthcare provider in a bad faith insurance dispute arising out of the defense of a pharmaceutical malpractice case (Young v. HomeChoice Partners, Inc., No. 08C-10957-4, Circuit Court for Gwinnett County, Georgia)
• Represented The Church Insurance Company in insurance coverage, bad faith and fraud litigations and in reinsurance arbitrations arising out of approximately 75 childhood sexual abuse claims (Bd. of Trustees of Porter-Gaud School v. The Church Ins. Co., No. 2-01 0631 18, US District Court for the District of South Carolina)

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• Financial Times, 2012 recipient of Innovative Lawyers award for his work negotiating and drafting a 600-page settlement agreement and 25 administrative process agreements that resolved 10,116 tort cases against the City of New York and 140 of its private contractors in In Re World Trade Center Disaster Site Litigation by creating a neutral-administered claims evaluation process to distribute fairly and efficiently $712,500,000 million in settlement proceeds to first responders and others alleging injuries due to their work at Ground Zero and elsewhere in Lower Manhattan on and after 9/11
• Law 360, Rising Star and named “one of five insurance attorneys under 40 to watch” in the United States, 2011
• American Bar Association, selected by his peers as an editor of the Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation Handbook, which was published in October 2010

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