Morgan Lewis
Photo of  Jeffrey S. Raskin

honors + affiliations

Listed, Chambers USA: America's Leading Lawyers for Business (2007–2011)

bar admissions

  • California

Court Admissions

  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  • U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, Central, and Southern Districts of California
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Jeffrey S. Raskin
Partner


Email: jraskin@morganlewis.com
San Francisco
One Market, Spear Street Tower
San Francisco, CA 94105-1596
Phone: 415.442.1219
Fax: 415.442.1001

Jeffrey S. Raskin is a partner and head of Morgan Lewis's Insurance Recovery Practice in the San Francisco Office. Mr. Raskin has represented and advised clients involved in litigation, arbitration, and mediation in matters related to insurance coverage, environmental disputes, intellectual property disputes, commercial disputes, and real estate disputes. Mr. Raskin has handled insurance matters seeking recovery for catastrophic losses in securities, environmental, asbestos, silica, toxic tort, product liability, intellectual property, and employment practices cases. He has handled first-party claims for loss covered by physical damage and business interruption policies, title policies, and fidelity and crime policies. Mr. Raskin also advises corporate insureds regularly on matters in connection with the procurement of insurance by auditing insurance assets, structuring commercial insurance programs, identifying potential legal issues, and advising in the negotiations for more favorable policies terms. 

Mr. Raskin's clients include companies involved in the energy, chemical, entertainment, manufacturing, retail, banking, and financial services sectors. Prior to joining Morgan Lewis in 2003, Mr. Raskin was a partner at Zevnik Horton LLP.

Mr. Raskin has published articles on a variety of topics, including the application of insurance policy limits to asbestos "operations" claims; the historical application of the "products hazard" and "completed operations hazard" in liability insurance policies; the number of "occurrences" under liability insurance policies; the application of self-insured retentions under liability insurance policies; the application of the words "suit" and "action" as used in liability insurance policies; the "insured v. insured" exclusion; the recovery of pretender expense in insurance coverage litigation; the prosecution of insurance coverage actions against umbrella and excess insurance companies; the use of antisuit injunctions in multistate, multiparty insurance coverage actions; and the discovery of electronic mail messages in civil litigation. Mr. Raskin is ranked by Chambers and Partners and has been selected as a Northern California Super Lawyer.

Mr. Raskin is admitted to practice in California, and before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the U.S. District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, Southern, and Central Districts of California.

Selected Representations

  • Lead attorney in a case seeking non-aggregated coverage for asbestos liabilities arising from insulation contracting activities. The insurers asserted throughout the 1990s that all of their coverage was "exhausted" and they no longer were required to defend or indemnify the insured against lawsuits that continued to be filed against the company. Based on our efforts, however, some of those insurers reinstituted their defense and indemnification of the insured in 2007. An entirely favorable 105-page decision following a 28 day bench trial was issued in May 2010, rejecting several of the insurers' defenses to coverage and the maintenance of the insured's declaratory relief lawsuit. Plant Insulation Co. v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., 2010 WL 1872674 (Cal.Superior, May 5, 2010).
  • Lead attorney at trial in an action establishing that umbrella insurer was required to pay defense costs "in addition to" the $30,000,000 in limits it agreed were available to pay the client's asbestos liabilities. Yarway Corp. v. Admiral Ins. Co, San Francisco Superior Court Case No. CGC-04-435399 (March 2, 2009).
  • One of the attorneys in a coverage case for a large international investment bank under a run-off professional services liability insurance policy under which the bank sought recovery for hundreds of millions of dollars paid defending against and settling dozens of suits asserted against its predecessors-by-merger. Separate rounds of summary judgment were filed in 2009 and 2010. On the eve of trial, following extensive briefing and oral argument, all of the insurers in the case agreed to settle the case on terms favorable to the bank.
  • Lead attorney in a case seeking coverage for a lawsuit alleging that the insured infringed the plaintiff's valuable trademarks. Although the insurer's policy contained an exclusion for actions asserting intellectual property claims, the court held that various allegations of the insured's alleged "bad faith" conduct constituted a covered claim for product disparagement. The insurer therefore was required to defend the lawsuit in full. Western Intern. Syndication Corp. v. Gulf Ins. Co., 2004 WL 5574357 (C.D.Cal., Nov. 8, 2004), aff'd., 222 Fed.Appx. 589 (9th Cir. (Cal.) Feb 26, 2007).
  • Lead attorney in a case seeking coverage for substantial breast implant liabilities under several "claims made" commercial general liability insurance policies. The case also involved questions of corporate succession, and allegations of mutual mistake and reformation, each of which were decided in favor of the insured. Inamed Corp. v. Medmarc Cas. Ins. Co., 258 F.Supp.2d 1117 (C.D. Cal. 2002).
  • Lead attorney in a case applying California law over New Jersey law in dispute over the extent of coverage available to satisfy the insured's asbestos liabilities even though the court noted that he insured had "a strong corporate presence in New Jersey during a period in which the insurance companies provided coverage." Conair Corp. v. Fireman's Fund Ins. Co., San Francisco Superior Court Case No: CGC-02-414956 (September 29, 2006).
  • One of the lead attorneys in a multi-jurisdictional, multifaceted and multi-dimensional series of lawsuits seeking to obtain insurance coverage for tens of thousands of asbestos and silica lawsuits filed nationwide against the subsidiaries of a Fortune 500 company.
  • The lead attorney in several lawsuits on behalf of product and equipment manufacturers seeking insurance coverage for substantial asbestos liabilities.

education

  • Santa Clara University School of Law, 1993, J.D.
  • University of California, Los Angeles, 1987, B.A.