How to Evaluate Exposure to Personal Liability Arising from Recent Enforcement Actions Against Corporate Counsel

Corporate policyholders rely on Lynda to aggressively litigate, negotiate, and resolve complicated disputes with insurers. To date, she has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance recoveries for her clients. 

With more than 20 years of commercial litigation experience, Lynda understands that it is generally not in the best interests of corporate policyholders to engage in protracted and costly litigation, especially when doing so may disrupt business and lead to unwelcome public attention. Her goal is to assess and resolve disputes in a manner that achieves successful outcomes for her clients while minimizing interruptions to business as usual. However, if litigation becomes necessary, she has a keen sense of strategy and will exert maximum leverage to resolve claims as quickly as possible.

Lynda has obtained significant recoveries for clients in environmental, asbestos, construction defect, mass tort, product liability, D&O, and professional liability cases. She also counsels clients with respect to contractual insurance requirements, new insurance products (such as cyber insurance), innovative risk management tools, and insurance program assessment. Working with the firm's transactional lawyers, Lynda regularly advises strategic acquirers and private equity funds regarding insurance coverage issues that arise in acquisition and investment transactions.

Lynda has chaired the Insurance Recovery group since 2011 and is a member of the firm's Executive Board and Compensation Committee. She previously served on the firm's Operating Committee and Recruiting Committee, and she is currently actively engaged in growing the firm's Washington, D.C., office through the expansion of the Insurance Recovery group in Washington.

Lynda is strongly committed to advancing the role of women in the legal profession. She is a founder of the firm's Women's Initiative, is active in legal industry women's groups, and serves as a board member and past president of the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association. She is also an active participant in a firmwide initiative to help junior attorneys develop their networking, business development, and branding skills.

Lynn Feldman is executive vice president and general counsel, responsible for all legal matters at Clear Channel Outdoor Americas.

She is an accomplished legal executive and brings deep operational experience to CCOA. Lynn most recently served as the EVP and General Counsel for Wyndham Hotel Group, a subsidiary of Wyndham Worldwide Corporation.

Prior to that role, she served as the SVP, Deputy General Counsel and public company Corporate Secretary for the parent company, Wyndham Worldwide. Earlier in her career, Lynn was in various corporate roles within Cendant Corporation and a Corporate Associate at Lowenstein Sandler. She received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C.

Shirin Saks is Assistant General Counsel at Dun & Bradstreet, responsible for Employment, Litigation and Compliance. In this role, she provides advice on litigation strategy, coordinates with external counsel on litigation matters and resolves disputes with third parties. She has global oversight of employment matters and is the chief employment support for Dun & Bradstreet’s HR team, where she provides day-to-day counseling on the full range of employment issues, including policy development, performance management, the accommodation of disabilities, reductions-in-force and benefits-related matters. She also leads Dun & Bradstreet’s internal investigation process, serving as the point of contact for all employee investigations, as well as developing and delivering global training on conducting investigations. Ms. Saks also has responsibility Dun & Bradstreet’s Records Hold process, in connection with litigation and investigations. Finally, Ms. Saks supports all other compliance team initiatives, including developing policies and implementing awareness/training programs.

Pat is currently is the General Counsel for Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. as well as the head of corporate affairs (including Public Affairs). She has had a series of different roles since joining joined DSI in March 2008 She and her group manage all litigation (products liability, employment, IP/BD, and other general litigation). Her function is also responsible for the group coordinating the review of promotional pieces for the Company and the Programs and Grants process. She also serves as the Secretary for many of the Daiichi Sankyo entities in the United States.

Pat graduated from Montclair State University with a B.A. in Political Science and minors in Paralegal Studies and Public Administration. She earned a Masters from New York University in Public Administration (with a concentration in judicial administration). She graduated from Seton Hall Law School (evening division) and was admitted to the NJ bar in 1991. Immediately after law school, she was associated with the Newark (NJ) law firm now known as Gibbons P.C. She was also, for approximately, 13 years, part of the in-house legal staff of Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. where, at various times, provided legal advice to the Human Resources function and managed commercial litigation (primarily employment and large-scale products liability matters).