Profile: John E Heintz

Insurance and Reinsurance

Biography: Insurance & Reinsurance

John Heintz chairs Kelley Drye & Warren's insurance recovery and Washington, DC litigation practice groups, and has nearly 30 years of experience in the fields of corporate insurance coverage and other complex, multiparty litigation. He has successfully represented clients in securing coverage for asbestos, lead, environmental contamination, class action discrimination, directors' and officers' liabilities, and medical product liability claims, and property and business interruption losses arising out of the 9/11 attacks and other catastrophic events. In the course of those representations, Mr Heintz has obtained favourable rulings for his clients in numerous landmark appellate cases at the state and federal levels.

Mr Heintz's litigation experience includes a number of significant insurance coverage cases. Specifically, he has litigated and secured favourable resolutions of insurance coverage disputes and related bankruptcy issues arising from several asbestos-related bankruptcies; secured a duty to defend in a seminal lead pigment public nuisance coverage case; obtained a nine figure recovery in a residual value insurance claim for a large automobile leasing company; negotiated a sizable D&O settlement on behalf of a company officer facing criminal prosecution and civil litigation; represented large corporate property owners in coverage disputes arising from damage caused to their properties at Ground Zero on 9/11, and obtained settlements valued at several hundred million dollars; secured many billions of dollars in coverage for asbestos-related claims on behalf of major policyholders; obtained over US$400 million in settlements on behalf of a major petroleum client in one of the largest insurance coverage cases ever filed in the US, involving 75 insurance carriers and five years of litigation.

Mr Heintz is a member of the American Bar Association litigation section's insurance committee and was a leading member of the committee's national coverage litigation resolution and complex insurance litigation manual task forces.

Mr Heintz received his BA from Cornell University in 1970, his MPA from Princeton University in 1974, and his JD from New York University in 1977. He was admitted to the Bar in the District of Columbia in 1977 and is a member of the Bars of the US District Court, District of Columbia (1978); US Court of Appeals, DC Circuit and Fourth Circuit (1979); US Court of Appeals, Third and Ninth Circuits (1982); US Court of Appeals, Second Circuit (1997); and the US Supreme Court (1989).