Lawrence D. Mason

Larry Mason is a renowned trial and appellate litigator and counselor to many national and international businesses across diverse industries. Based in Chicago but with experience litigating and counseling clients through complicated and high-profile matters across the U.S. and internationally, he dedicates most of his practice to property and casualty insurance coverage, products liability, professional liability for clients in construction, environmental and related industries, environmental and toxic torts, identifying emerging risks (especially cybersecurity and new technologies), and complex commercial litigation. He brings his extensive experience to his leadership positions within the firm as chair of the Environmental and Mass Torts Coverage and co-chair of the Cyber Risk Coverage and Coverage B Claims subgroups.

For nearly three decades, Larry has been a thought leader in the insurance law community. He has been a pioneer inside the courtroom, litigating many cases of first impression advancing new interpretations of law and new defenses, as well as outside the courtroom, writing and speaking about the most pressing issues in insurance and related fields. Larry has also served as an expert witness or arbitrator in complex, multi-issue cases. His experience includes commercial litigation involving insurance and reinsurance coverage; first- and third-party liability; product liability; contracts; bad faith; toxic torts; technology and cybersecurity; intellectual property disputes; D&O/E&O; professional liability defense for construction companies and their executives, architects, engineers, and contractors; and complicated cross-discipline cases arising from environmental, structural, or other catastrophic damages, including business interruption and lost revenue.

Widely known as “The Problem Solver,” Larry’s practice encompasses a broad spectrum of first-party and third-party coverage, reinsurance, and defense issues. Larry is frequently called upon to protect the interests of insurers and reinsurers in complex insurance coverage disputes and to defend their insureds concerning a variety of third-party liability issues. He has effectively applied his extensive experience in the handling of large catastrophe losses and the complex cross-discipline problems that arise from these claims to a wide array of business interests. Larry’s experience with product liability-related insurance and reinsurance coverage challenges, including product recall, contamination and liability risks, includes the successful defense of manufacturers against claims of negligent product design, failure to warn, and breach of warranties. He has additionally counseled clients in litigation liability prevention, product recall campaigns, and the development of product package warnings and owner/operator manuals. Larry routinely represents architects, engineers, contractors, and owners in a number of complex cases including breach of contract, failure of duty, environmental, and building design issues.

Formidable and respected as a trial and appellate litigator, Larry also regularly provides assistance to underwriters concerning policy and endorsement drafting, market strategy, and the development of new insurance products. Larry’s risk and litigation avoidance practice helps his business clients to avoid litigation by working with business leaders, risk managers, and underwriters to identify risks in developing fields (like cyber liability), devise risk management strategies and solutions, and offer general counsel to top-level executives.

Recognized early for his outstanding written rhetoric and style, Larry began his career as an appellate and insurance coverage lawyer. He had a passion for oral advocacy, though, and understood that his success as an appellate attorney would be limited without a foundation of trial experience. He went on to train under the preeminent property insurance lawyers of the late 1980s and early ‘90s, and has since been involved in many of the nation’s most complex property and casualty liability cases.

Larry continued to diversify his cross-disciplinary practice over the years, in keeping with the philosophy that has driven his entire career: An insurance attorney’s success has to rest on a foundation of diverse, deep, and balanced engagement with the dynamic and multifaceted issues involved in underlying claims. This belief propelled Larry to the forefront of developing fields, including asbestos and other environmental and construction hazards, cyber risks and cyber insurance, and liability issues related to climate change — all practices in which he is a recognized authority. This breadth of substantive experience facilitates the synergy Larry brings to his practice and to his clients, as he’s been able to provide coverage as well as defense counsel.

Larry’s clients benefit from his wide-ranging curiosity and the passion it brings to his work. His lifelong interest in architecture and construction, for example, fuels his deep and robust understanding of the challenges his clients in property insurance, construction and related fields face. His experiences in executive, financial, and project management positions at his synagogue, as well as his roles on the Board of Directors and Investment, Audit, and Independent Committees of the Spinnaker Insurance Company, equip Larry with an uncommon fluency in business, finance, management, and risk management. He understands the work his clients love as well as he does the legal concerns that would keep them from it.

His experience in property and liability insurance coverage dovetailed with his interest in construction, pushing him to explore environmental law and its frequent applications to property and liability cases. Early in his career, Larry handled declaratory judgment actions stemming from the Penn Mutual and One Meridian Plaza fires in Philadelphia, where he took a leading role on all environmental matters. He worked closely with environmental consultants and scientists, and continued to do so in later cases involving asbestos, PCBs, microbial exposure, benzene, Diacetyl, and other toxic torts. This led naturally to another, more recent interest: the liability issues surrounding climate change. Larry was among the first attorneys to explore this field, and has facilitated workshops and written on the subject. In his environmental defense practice, Larry also offers clients in-depth knowledge of state and federal regulations, including the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and others. He also litigates matters involving contamination and exposure to chemicals and substances. In addition to handling adversarial matters, Larry counsels clients concerning litigation avoidance by providing strategic advice regarding environmental compliance and strategy.

In his work in insurance coverage and commercial litigation, Larry has also maintained his position at the forefront of advancing technologies, cyber risks, and cyber liability, an interest he discovered unexpectedly when he helped to start a new law firm, overseeing all technology development and deployment. An authority and driving force in the effective use of technology in legal practices and in courtrooms, Larry helped to shape the role technology would play in the practice of law, pioneering the use of electronic briefs, document coding, and databases. He continues to lead in the field, speaking and writing on cybersecurity and helping clients to draft contracts and insurance policies that include cybersecurity and risk avoidance provisions. His clients call on him to identify emerging risks: Recent work has touched on opioids, wildfires, drones, cyber liability, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, and Fin-Tech (financial technologies).

Larry is a regular host and featured guest of Goldberg Segalla’s Timely Notice podcast, the insurance industry’s on-the-go source for sharp takes and expert analysis of the latest trends, breaking news, and sea-changes in global insurance law and the insurance marketplace. He also frequently contributes to the firm's Global Insurance Services webinar series, where he presents on emerging legal issues involving the insurance industry.