Steven Lesan represents policyholders in high-stakes insurance matters, including coverage disputes and bad faith litigation, policy negotiations and renewals, and strategic portfolio management.
Mr. Lesan regularly handles matters in state or federal courts, or before arbitration panels related to a full spectrum of policies, including:
Cyber, data, and privacy
Comprehensive general liability
Directors and officers liability
Errors and omissions
Environmental impairment liability
Builders risk
Film production
Business interruption claims
Property policies
He has established an impressive track record recovering hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of Fortune 500 policyholders in complex and often cross-border insurance disputes. His sophisticated strategic instinct and exclusive focus on representing policyholders has led to precedent-setting decisions at the California Supreme Court, and favorable ADR solutions to seemingly intractable issues.
Mr. Lesan’s client representation also touches on every aspect of insurance advising, including:
Claims counseling through the life cycle of the pursuit for coverage
Negotiating custom insurance products
Strategically managing insurance portfolios and policy procurement
Counseling on insurance-related aspects of corporate transactions and post-restructuring
Diligencing insurance, indemnity, and “long-tail” liabilities
Mr. Lesan has served as an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law, lecturing on insurance and environmental law issues.
Prior to practicing law, Mr. Lesan served as a judicial extern for Judge M. Margaret McKeown of the US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, and for Judge Thomas J. Whelan of the US District Court for the Southern District of California, and as a law clerk for the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, Office of the Inspector General. While in law school, Mr. Lesan was the comments editor for the San Diego Law Review.
Experience
Mr. Lesan’s client work includes representing:
An application-based ride-sharing company in a breach of contract and bad faith action against its cyber insurer; the matter settled favorably shortly after Latham conducted targeted bad faith discovery in a confidential JAMS arbitration
Montrose Chemical Corporation in a US$250+ million environmental coverage lawsuit that is one of the highest-profile insurance disputes in the nation; won a unanimous victory in Montrose Chem. Corp. v. Super. Ct. (2020), a landmark decision establishing policyholders’ right to “electively stack” multiple years of excess policies to insure against continuous loss claims
Fluor Corporation, an engineering, procurement, construction, and maintenance services organization, in conjunction with its ongoing pursuit of insurance coverage and prosecution of bad faith actions for failing to defend and indemnify Fluor in connection with lawsuits alleging property damage and bodily injury; secured a unanimous victory in the California Supreme Court, Fluor Corp. v. Super. Ct. (2015), a landmark ruling allowing policyholders to assign rights to insurance coverage without obtaining prior insurance company consent
A sovereign American Indian tribe in insurance litigation over its insurers’ denials of coverage for business interruption precipitated by COVID-19 and its far-reaching repercussions
Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. to secure insurance coverage in connection with the Portland Harbor Superfund Site in Oregon
Qualifications
Bar Qualification
California
Education
JD, University of San Diego School of Law, 2013 magna cum laude, Order of the Coif
BA, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2009 distinction with Honors
Latham’s success leading the joint defense effort that secured the complete dismissal, with prejudice, of all claims against our client BMW and several other German automakers in the so-called “Circle of Five” emissions conspiracy litigation was chosen among the Top Defense Verdicts of 2020.
Multidisciplinary team advised the independent energy and commodity groups operator on the sale that helps support a lower carbon future through the expansion of renewable fueling solutions nationwide.
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