Profile: Mary Kay Vyskocil

Insurance and Reinsurance

Biography: Insurance & Reinsurance

Mary Kay Vyskocil is a litigation partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, where she handles general commercial litigation. Her practice is concentrated in insurance and reinsurance coverage litigation and cases involving the financial services industry. Ms Vyskocil has been involved in the representation of major domestic and foreign insurers in complex coverage litigations (including numerous jury trials) throughout the US in a wide variety of contexts, including environmental, asbestos, breast implants and other mass tort claims. She was one of the lead trial counsel in Shell Oil Company v Accident & Casualty Insurance Company in California regarding coverage for environmental liabilities at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal. She represented a major insurer in several coverage cases seeking insurance for Y2K remediation expenses. Most recently, Ms Vyskocil is representing the lead property insurer in connection with coverage issues arising out of the September 11 World Trade Center attack, including participating as trial counsel in the Silverstein World Trade Center litigation which resulted in a jury verdict for her client.

Ms Vyskocil is also active in reinsurance litigations and arbitrations in the US, Great Britain and Bermuda. She has been involved in a number of precedentially important reinsurance cases, including Travelers v Gerling (Second Circuit: follow the fortunes), Travelers v Underwriters at Lloyds (NY high court: treaty interpretation), Unigard v North River Insurance Co (New York's highest court: late notice), North River v Cigna Re (Third Circuit: follow the fortunes), and ISLIC v Underwriters at Lloyds (follow the fortunes/number of occurrences).

Outside the insurance area, Ms Vyskocil represented JPMorgan Chase and a syndicate of banks in a bench trial on a loan guarantee which resulted in a US$370 million verdict against Motorola. She was involved in the representation of Paramount Communications in the Paramount-Viacom-QVC takeover litigation and represented Matsushita Electrical Industries in MCA v Epstein, which was successfully argued in the US Supreme Court. Ms Vyskocil also has served as outside counsel to the Archdiocese of New York.

Ms Vyskocil is co-author of the leading treatise, Modern Reinsurance Law & Practice 2d ed (Glasser LegalWorks 2000) and is a frequent lecturer and author on insurance and reinsurance coverage issues and on litigation and trial skills.

Ms Vyskocil is active in professional organisations and community affairs. She is active in the Federal Bar Council, the American Bar Association's Insurance Coverage Committee and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York where she previously served as chair of the Insurance Committee. From 1994 to 1997, she served as a co-chair of one of the subcommittees involved in the Second Circuit Study on Racial, Ethnic & Gender Fairness. Ms Vyskocil currently serves on the Joint Committee (of the Federal Bar Counsel and the Association of the Bar) on Judicial Conduct.

Ms Vyskocil was cited in the National Law Journal's '40 Under 40' (November 1995) which noted in particular her expertise in the area of reinsurance. She is also listed in Euromoney's Guide to the World's Leading Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers; Chambers Guide (USA) America's Leading Business Lawyers; and Who's Who Legal, which ranks Ms Vyskocil as one of the top 15 most highly regarded insurance and reinsurance lawyers globally and in the top two in the US. Mary Kay was named in 2001 as one of 'America's Top 50 Women Litigators' by the National Law Journal.