WE ARE FIGHTING INSURANCE COMPANIES TO FORCE
THEM TO PAY BUSINESS INTERRUPTION CLAIMS
Restaurants and other small businesses across the country were denied business interruption insurance coverage from COVID-19 despite having faithfully paid insurance premiums for years. Insurance carriers flatly denied claims and rejected coverage for pandemic losses.
Small business owners and their employees have sacrificed their jobs and livelihoods for the public good, doing whatever was asked of them to halt the spread of COVID-19. Our national and state and local governments reached deep into taxpayer coffers to fix what the insurance companies were obligated to cover but refused to pay. Insurance companies have reserves estimated at over two trillion dollars to fund policies that are supposed to provide coverage under longstanding legal principles. They will not pay until the courts make them pay.
I have been a practicing attorney since 2002. I represent mostly restaurants and other small companies in business law matters, with years of experience with insurance coverage disputes. I am a litigator, and started my career at the prestigious firm Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann and Bernstein, LLP. My years at this exemplary firm gave me skills that carried me forward for the next two decades as both a litigator and as general counsel to small businesses. I have rejoined this firm to fight the insurance industry because I know that together we offer the best chance for winning. Their history of success against the insurance industry is legendary, with recovery in those cases and others in the billions.
I am not only an attorney--I grew up in the restaurant business: my grandparents owned the famous Pie-N-Burger in Pasadena, California. I also married into the industry as spouse/partner to celebrity chef Daniel Patterson. We were together nearly 17 years. I built my business law practice representing our restaurants and many others. To me the fight is personal: many of my clients have now closed their businesses forever, many of which I helped them create.
Insurance should have covered these business losses from day one of
the pandemic. This would have have prevented heartbreaking personal fractures, decisions to close, despair, bankruptcy, the loss of beloved employees, and the end of storied and hard-earned careers.
Small business is the backbone of this nation. I am reaching out to ask you to add your voice to the important story of what is happening in the courts nationwide. With Leiff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, I will continue to file lawsuits across the country on behalf of restaurants and others devastated first by a pandemic, and then again by insurance companies’ greed. In these cases, all fees and costs are advanced on contingency. It is not too late to be represented in this ongoing fight. I hope you will join me.