John Buchanan, a partner in Covington & Burling's Washington office, has been engaged in insurance coverage advocacy, dispute resolution and counseling since the early 1980s. He served as the firm's first Insurance Practice Group Coordinator for a decade. Mr. Buchanan's coverage litigation career began with DES and asbestos claims, including the first reported decision affording broad general liability coverage for both asbestos bodily injury and asbestos property damage, in Lac d'Amiante du Quebec, Ltee v. American Home Assurance Co., 613 F.Supp. 1549 (D.N.J. 1985). In addition to asbestos and pharmaceutical coverage issues, he has litigated, arbitrated, mediated and negotiated insurance recoveries for a wide variety of other claims, including general liability ("GL") coverage for environmental liability, hearing loss, repetitive stress injury, "deleterious substance" and other mass tort claims; broadcast, intellectual property and competition-related claims; directors' and officers' ("D&O"), errors and omissions ("E&O"), and fidelity bond claims; employment practices liability ("EPL") claims; and flood, crime, product tampering, business interruption/extra expense, satellite in-orbit, and other complex first-party property coverage claims. Coverage cases in which Mr. Buchanan currently serves as lead counsel for the policyholders include NCR Corporation v. AIG Centennial Ins. Co., et al. (Wis. Cir. Ct., Brown County), involving coverage for PCB-related liabilities at the Lower Fox River and Green Bay Superfund Site; and Consolidated Rail Corp. v. ACE Property & Casualty Ins. Co., (Pa. Ct. Comm. Pl., Philadelphia County), involving coverage for environmental liabilities at multiple railroad facilities. Recent representations that are not reflected on public court dockets include: claims under cyber-insurance and other lines of coverage for two separate network intrusions that the media has described as the largest thefts of confidential data in history; a claim for coverage of major litigation involving mining subsidence allegations in Illinois; various Katrina and other storm-related claims; and London and Bermuda arbitrations arising out of a major railroad derailment. Mr. Buchanan also frequently counsels clients on policy underwriting and renewal issues in areas ranging from complex GL and D&O programs to specialty programs such as entertainment and satellite policies. Mr. Buchanan teaches a graduate-level course on Insurance Litigation at the Insurance Law Center of the University of Connecticut School of Law. He has also taught insurance-related topics at the University of Virginia Law School and in a wide variety of CLE programs. He is the author or co-author of numerous papers and articles on topics relating to insurance, litigation and alternative dispute resolution, and co-authored one of the earliest publications on cyber insurance coverage. Mr. Buchanan currently serves as an invited member of the Board of Advisors to the American Law Institute’s Project on the Law of Liability Insurance. He served on the ABA Dispute Resolution Section’s Task Force on Improving Mediation Quality, whose report was issued in 2008. He has co-chaired the American Bar Association's Task Force on Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation, served on the ABA Task Force for a Manual on Complex Insurance Coverage Litigation, and co-chaired the annual meeting of the ABA Litigation Section's Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee (ICLC); and he continues to serve in various leadership roles for the ICLC. As a member of the American Law Institute, he has served on the Members' Consultative Group for the Restatement (Third) of Torts, in addition to his current role with the Liability Insurance Project. He also served recently as an elected member of the Steering Committee of the Law Practice Management Section of the District of Columbia Bar. In addition to his law practice, Mr. Buchanan has served as parent body President and Governing Board member for St. Albans School and on the Andover Alumni Council, as well as other ongoing charity board memberships and activities in the Washington, DC area. HONORS AND RANKINGS The Best of the Best USA The Best Lawyers in America Chambers USA - America's Leading Business Lawyers (National and DC recognition) The International Who's Who of Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers The Legal 500 United States The Legal Media Group Guide to the World's Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers Washington DC Super Lawyers Euromoney's Expert Guides to the World's Leading Lawyers Who's Who Legal Washingtonian PUBLICATIONS AND SPEECHES "Protecting Privilege While Preserving Coverage," 22 Coverage No. 1 (January/February 2012), Co-Author "The Comerica Conundrum: Settlement Versus Forfeiture in Multi-layer Insurance Settlements," ABA Litigation Section, Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee Annual CLE Seminar (2012) "Doing Right and Doing Well: Ethical Rules as a Boon to Practice," ABA Litigation Section, Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee (“ICLC”) Annual CLE Seminar (2011)