Speaker Bios

Mr. Beemer has 45 years in the insurance industry and is retired and doing consulting and expert witness work through Suite 200 Solutions.  Previously he was the VP of Claims at Tokio Marine HCC Insurance Group.  Prior to TMHCC, Mr. Beemer worked at IAT, QBE, Aetna, CNA, Home Insurance, Risk Enterprise Management and Fireman's Fund Insurance Company.   At QBE Mr. Beemer lead the liability claims department and the Litigation Management department for QBE.  He had direct oversight of Litigation Management, Transportation, GL, CD, TPA Services and Environmental claims.  Prior to QBE Mr. Beemer was the National Claim Director for Construction Defect, Latent Injury and Entertainment Claims at Fireman's Fund Insurance Company. In his career he has been a chief technical officer, consultant to re-insurers, training coordinator, national accounts coordinator, litigation manager, legal auditor, claims and due diligence auditor, PMK, expert witness and has been a panel speaker at CLM and other industry events. He serves on  the Advisory Board for the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, has served as Dean of Litigation Management at Claims College and is a Chancellor and Professor at Litigation Management Institute. Mr. Beemer has authored numerous articles for Claims Management Magazine and Litigation Management Magazine. Mr. Beemer received the CLM Lifetime Achievement Award in 2023 at the Annual Conference in Tampa Florida. Mr.Beemer is retired but does consutling work through Suite 200 Solutions.

Dan co-founded and serves as the Executive Chairman of Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman, a full service law firm with over 400 attorneys with offices throughout the United States.  In his role as Chairman, Dan is responsible for the high level management of the firm, execution of the firm's strategic vision and ensuring its overall effective operational management. Representing Fortune 500 companies and mid-market businesses, Dan is a recognized authority on commercial and business law, has received Martindale Hubbell's highest rating of "AV Preeminent," and has been selected a California "Super Lawyer" on numerous occasions. Dan's legal work spans matters involving business issues, professional liability, real estate, intellectual property, entertainment endeavors, and construction-related issues.  Dan has worked for many years closely with the domestic and London insurance markets, has successfully tried numerous complex cases to verdict and has been instrumental in several groundbreaking favorable rulings in the appellate realm.  He has served as a court appointed arbitrator and mediator, and serves as monitoring and coordinating counsel for clients throughout the United States.

Memberships and Accomplishments: Firm Chairman, Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman; 2015 –Present, Managing Partner, Wood, Smith, Henning & Berman; 2007 – 2015, Member, Young Presidents' Organization Santa Monica Bay Chapter (YPOSMB); 2009 – Present, Member, Council on Litigation Management, Professional Liability Committee Member, California Building Industry Association Legal Action Subcommittee Member, Professional Liability Defense Federation Member, Defense Research Institute, Technology Committee Member, National Association of Home Builders Construction Law Attorney Forum Member, Building Industry Association of Southern California Member, Association of Southern California Defense Counsel (ASCDC) Member, Risk and Insurance Management Society, Inc. (RIMS) Fellow, Litigation Counsel of America Quarterly Contributor to Residential Design and Build Magazine, AV Preeminent Lawyer by Martindale-Hubbell, Certified Continuing Legal Education Instructor at the Litigation Management Institute (LMI) at Columbia University Law School.

Robert Bowers is National Claims Leader for Westfield Insurance. In this role, Rob is responsible for the strategic direction and operational policies, procedures and results of the claims department and serves on Westfield’s P&C leadership team.  Rob has held a variety of operational, leadership, executive, sr. executive and change leadership roles throughout his 29 years in the industry and his 20 career at Westfield.  Most recently, Rob held the role of National Claims Strategy Leader and was responsible for the strategic development and deployment of Westfield’s multi-year claims transformation initiatives focused on organizational customer, analytical, and data advancements spanning successful comprehensive changes to process, organization and technology.  In addition to his claims roles, Rob has served as Change Leader for other organizational initiatives including Westfield’s Business Intelligence initiative. 

Rob received his undergraduate degree from Geneva College, Beaver Falls, PA;  and his MBA from Ashland University, Ashland, Ohio; where he was inducted into Delta Mu Delta. He currently holds multiple insurance designations, including CPCU, SCLA and AIC.  He also holds certifications as a Hammer Process Master and is certified in Prosci Change Management.

Rob has spoken at a variety of industry events including CLM’s Claims College and Litigation Management Institute; the Annual Claims Event (ACE); ACE Tech; Guidewire Connections;  IBM Counterfraud Summit among others. 

Rob lives in Aurora, Ohio with his wife Cindy, and their children and is actively involved in the local community with various church, missions, board and volunteer activities. 
 

John Browning is the managing partner of the Dallas, Texas office of Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith, LLP, where he handles civil litigation in state and federal courts in areas ranging from employment and intellectual property to commercial cases and defense of products liability, professional liability, media law, and general negligence matters. Mr. Browning has extensive trial, arbitration, and summary judgment experience and has represented companies in a wide variety of industries throughout Texas and on a pro hac vice basis in other jurisdictions. Mr. Browning received his B.A. with general and departmental honors from Rutgers University in 1986, where he was a National Merit Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. He received his J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law in 1989. Some of his honors include being a 2009 and 2010 recipient of the prestigious Burton Award for Achievement in Legal Writing; rated "AV," the highest commendation issued by Martindale-Hubbell for legal ability, ethics, and professionalism; selected as a "Super Lawyer" in the field of Civil Ligation Defense (2005¬2010, Law & Politics); inducted as a Charter Fellow of the Litigation Counsel of America, a trial lawyer honorary society limited to 3,500 Fellows, representing less than one-half of one percent of American lawyers; and elected to the American Law Institute (one of only seven lawyers in Texas elected in 2009). Mr. Browning is a noted legal writer, and is a frequent contributor to national and regional legal publications on a wide variety of subjects. His weekly syndicated newspaper column "Legally Speaking" has garnered numerous journalism awards. His book, The Lawyer's Guide to Social Networking: Understanding Social Media's Impact on the Law, was published in December 2010 by Thomson ReutersWest Publishing. He is a member of the Texas Association of Defense Counsel, the International Association of Defense Counsel, and also serves as an adjunct professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, where he teaches the course “Social Media and the Law.” He is the author of numerous articles on social media-related topics, and has been quoted as a national authority on the subject by the New York Times, TIME Magazine, Salon.com, Inside Counsel Magazine, Law 360, and other publications.

Christopher A. Carucci is Vice President of Client Services for Gallagher Bassett. His responsibilities include oversight of large national accounts, claim management and litigation management.  Previously, Chris was in a claim leadership role at Everest National Insurance Company. Chris was responsible for managing the Casualty, Auto, Property, Excess, and Professional Liability Claim Departments as well as overseeing Litigation Management, SIU and Compliance. Prior to joining Everest National Insurance Company, Chris was a leader within the Specialties Claims Organization of Zurich North America managing the Professional Liability Claim Department.  He also was played a significant role in litigation management.  Chris worked at AIG before joining Zurich North America. At AIG, he managed a nationwide caseload of bad faith, coverage and high exposure Casualty claims. Chris also was involved in litigation management and conducting training for claims personnel.
 
Chris is a member of the American Bar Association, the New York Bar Association, the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance (Advisory Board Member), the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel, USLAW (Client Advisory Board), Defense Research Institute and NRRDA. He is a professor at the CLM Litigation Management Institute and a frequent speaker at industry events on topics including claim management, litigation management and good faith claim handling.  He earned his B.A. degree from Fairfield University and his J.D. from New York Law School.

Frank Chang is currently Director of Safety and Insurance Analytics at Uber, a group of data scientists and actuaries dedicated to making rare events even more rare. Frank has been at Uber since 2014.
Frank's career as a non-traditional actuary, however, began in 2012, when he joined Google as their first and Lead Actuary, responsible for pricing, reserving, credit and risk modeling.
Before Google, Frank worked in various traditional roles covering personal, commercial, and specialty lines pricing as well as reserving and reinsurance. The bulk of Frank's traditional actuarial career was spent at Fireman's Fund Insurance Company.
Frank graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a B.A. in Music and a Ph.D. in Mathematics. He is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and will serve a three-year term on the CAS Board of Directors starting in November 2017.

Dan Costello, Founder and Managing Partner of Costello Ginex & Wideikis,  is currently recognized as a national expert in litigation management, complex case litigation, and trial practice.  In 2014 he was one of four finalists for the Claim and Litigation Management (CLM) Outside Counsel of the Year, selected from nearly 40,000 members. He is a Advisory Board member for CLM, Co-Chair of the Anti-Nuclear Verdict Task Force, Co-Chair of the Litigation Management Symposium (LMS), and a Chancellor of Litigation Management Institute (LMI) held at Loyola Law school in Chicago.

Over the last three years, Dan's litigation practice has continued to grow, as has the firms growing portfolio of litigation based solutions.   Dan has been retained as lead counsel in complex cases including lead trial counsel in two cases of first impression in Illinois  including the loss of opportunity to have a biological child for 66 plaintiffs in a Cryogenic tank malfunction, and a class action lawsuit in litigation of Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) dealing with statutory/punitive damages.  He has also been retained in complex litigation including the collapse of a tent resulting in multiple fatalities and 19 plaintiffs' claims and recently resolved construction litigation brought on behalf of a national retailer that spanned seven states, and involved insurance disputes with twenty-two separate insurers. 

He also acts as a litigation consultant, billing fees expert, and expert in litigation of complex and construction defect disputes.  He has recently been retained as an expert witness in multiple party litigation in California, Texas, Florida, Arizona, among other states.   Dan also maintains an active practice in consulting with carriers on litigation management strategy, implementation, and improvement.  

Specialties: Construction Litigation, Litigation Management, Expert Fees, Complex litigation, Insurance Coverage, products liability, and construction/design defect

Richard A. Fuller is Actuarial Associate/Statistical Specialist for Claims, Information Technology, Corporate Actuarial, and Reinsurance at Arrowpoint Capital (formerly Royal & SunAlliance USA). Rich conducts research and data analysis supporting Claims, Reinsurance, Financial Accounting, Regulatory Compliance, Actuarial, and Internal Audit functions. In this role he provides analysis of workers compensation actuarial reserve estimates, monitors costs and disposition of the claims portfolio, provides analysis and data mining of reinsurance collection efforts, and develops the information technology infrastructure for management reporting.

Prior to his current role, Rich was Actuarial Associate/Statistical Specialist in the Company’s Personal Lines Division where he supported the pricing, underwriting, marketing, financial accounting, regulatory compliance and internal audit functions.

Rich has also held positions as MIS Manager in the Personal Lines Division, Senior Actuarial Analyst and Actuarial Programmer. Since beginning his career at Arrowpoint in 1986, he has gained vast knowledge and experience in personal lines, corporate actuarial, product actuarial and pricing.

Rich is an Associate of the Casualty Actuarial Society. He earned his master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his bachelor’s degree at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Helen is Vice President and Manager of Enterprise Legal Services for the Liberty Mutual Group.  She serves as Vice Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Claims and Litigation Management Alliance.  She is also a member of the ACC Law Department Executive Leadership Group.  Helen has had over 30 years of experience at Liberty Mutual Group including various management positions in the Claims and Legal Departments and the Field Legal Organization.  She assumed her current position in 2005, where her responsibilities include managing the outside legal expenditures for Liberty.  Her group is responsible for analytics on $1 Billion of legal spend.  Her responsibilities also include legal finance, technology, auditing and process improvement initiatives for the litigation management function.  Liberty Mutual is a diversified global insurer which ranks 71 on the Fortune 500.  Helen has a Bachelor of Science of Foreign Service from Georgetown University.

Michael Haverson is  Vice President of Litigation Management for Crum & Forster. In his current position he is responsible for Litigation Management, Subrogation, SIU and C&F claims account executives. 

  He has over thirty years experience as an attorney  in claims/ litigation management and dispute resolution. His experience with litigation management includes managing relationships with outside counsel  nationally, drafting and implementing  litigation management best practices, guidelines, reporting standards, budgeting and billing practices and alternative fee structures.  He also has significant experience working with e-billing platforms and  utilizing data metrics and information tools  to analyze legal performance and cost effectiveness.

Mr. Haverson also has a strong background  with respect to complex insurance coverage/bad faith issues and was formerly  a VP of Claims Legal at Zurich  He is experienced with ADR and served in the past as both a mediator and arbitrator.  He has been an instructor at the LMI since 2014.

Michael Leahy was for 35 years the senior partner in the Risk Management and Insurance Law practice group in the California firm of Haight, Brown & Bonesteel. The firm's insurance practice has been ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the first tier of all firms in Southern California based upon its expertise and reputation. His practice of over 40+ years has been primarily devoted to insurance law and risk transfer issues, including analysis of coverage and reinsurance issues, rendering opinions, drafting insurance policies and endorsements and litigating insurance issues both in bad faith litigation as well as declaratory judgment actions. He has been monitoring and supervisory counsel and national coverage counsel for a number of insurers, domestically and internationally, and has defended professionals in the insurance industry, and has served as an expert witness in extra contractual cases and reinsurance arbitrations.

He has lectured extensively in the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. He is a member of the Federation of Defense and Corporate Counsel and the Professional Liability Committee of the CLM. He is a Cum Laude graduate of the Loyola Law School and is a Fellow of the American College of Coverage and Extra Contractual Counsel. He has stepped back from the active practice of aw and is now serving as a consultant to companies and lawyers on insurance related issues and as an expert witness.

Mari Henry Leigh is Founder, CEo and Managing Member of Mari Henry Leigh & Associates, LLC.  Mari has more than three decades of experience as an attorney litigating or managing complex litigation on a wide variety of substantive legal disciplines and more than 23 years experience in legal fees disputes, litigation management and law firm and law department or claims management operations, including co-founding a predecessor practice.  A pioneer in the industry, Mari provides corporate clients with comprehensive litigation management and legal operations services, including the efficient execution and implementation of litigation strategies, the implementation of prospective cost containment and cost recovery/reimbursement initiatives (including ESI-discovery initiatives) and budgeting, predictive modeling and financial reporting on mass-tort, multi-jurisdictional litigation and other complex litigation. Referred to as the ‘‘Granddaddy of legal bill review’’ and ‘‘one of the first attorneys people go to [on billing and litigation management issues]’’ by colleagues and clients, Mari is highly skilled at data analytics and has conducted hundreds of legal audits involving billions of dollars in legal costs over the course of her career.  One client has described her as "utterly brilliant" and an "expert in her niche market" and described the practice she has built as "very impressive." In addition to serving as a testifying expert witness, Mari has also served as a facilitator, hearing officer and arbitrator of attorney fee disputes. She has also served on the Eligibility Committee of a mass-tort settlement.  

Vic Marmo is currently the Assistant VP, Global Claims for Marriott Vacations Worldwide Corporation (MVWC). Vic is a graduate of the University of Maryland, School of Business. He holds an Associate in Risk Management designation is a certified mediator and has extensive training in negotiations, mediation and trial strategy from various law schools including Pepperdine University, Harvard University and Southern Methodist University.
 
Vic began his career with Marriott International 25 years ago and has held several positions including Global Claims Director and Regional Claims Director for the Mid-Atlantic region.  He has recently moved to his current role with MVWC.
 
In his current position, Vic has responsibility for claims oversight of all claims in five lines of insurance (guest liability, workers compensation, employee dishonesty, property and employment practices liability). Vic also is responsible for the claims reporting process, nurse care program and claims audits and is an active member of several national organizations addressing litigation management and other relevant topics for self-insureds.
 

Matthew Morrison has years of experience focusing on complex claims, litigation management and insurance coverage issues from both the perspective of an insurer as well an attorney in private practice. In his current position with American Faminly Insurance he is responsible for all litigation outcomes across the enterprise including claims and corporate litigation. He is admitted to practice before the state courts of Illinois and Wisconsin, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and the United States Supreme Court. He is a member of the Illinois State Bar Association, the Wisconsin State Bar Association, Claims & Litigation Management Alliance Advisory Board and serves as a professor at CLM’s Litigation Management Institute. In 2013 Matt was named Litigation Management Professional of the Year by CLM.

Michael Owen – Vice President & Claims Counsel, RiverStone Claims Management, LLC.  Mike oversees litigation management processes and the development of defense litigation and trial strategies for claims RiverStone manages on behalf of its affiliates. Before joining RiverStone, Mike practiced law in New Hampshire as a member in a small firm specializing in business litigation. Mike also spent several years in government service before entering law practice.