Kelly Petter

Kelly Petter’s most significant career-defining moment occurred when Dan Gerber, a founding partner of Gerber Ciano Kelly Brady LLP, asked her to join the firm’s Insurance Solutions Practice Group, where she now works in areas of specialized insurance programs, loss portfolio transfers, private equity group structures, reinsurance, regulatory issues, and transactional aspects of insurance and private equity risk-transfer transactions, such as mergers, acquisitions, run-off portfolios, and corporate liability transfers. Had this not occurred, Petter does not believe she would be practicing in those highly specialized areas of law in addition to her original track in insurance coverage and insurance defense litigation.

Having benefitted from many mentors and professional opportunities throughout her career, Petter makes it a point to pass her knowledge onto others. As her nominator mentions, it is “thrilling to…find another young female who wants to help build up others around her…” A fellow woman recognizing how Petter tries to help other women succeed means the world to her, and Petter considers it her greatest achievement so far.

Mentoring and helping others succeed is incredibly important to Petter, and she leverages CLM’s opportunities to do so. For the 2023 Focus and Holiday Party, for instance, she and Jeff Chen of EMC Insurance created a new litigation management track focused on acknowledging and providing solutions for some of the tensions that arise in management of insurance claims.

Petter’s advice to other young professionals: Work with people who push you to succeed, and do not be afraid of mistakes, as they are a crucial part of the learning process.