Jennifer R. Buckingham

OVERVIEW

Jennifer focuses her practice on insurance coverage, bad faith litigation, immigration, premises liability, professional liability, contractual liability, personal injury defense, and equine law. She had the privilege in 2019 of participating in the renowned Secondee Counsel Program run by Brit Underwriting Syndicate at Lloyd’s, where she trained with Brit’s property binders claims team and underwriters. This opportunity not only provided an expansive knowledge of the Lloyd’s Market, but also led to numerous speaking engagements, including as a panelist in DACG’s annual Binders 101 program since its inception in 2019, representation of several Lloyd’s syndicates, and has established Jennifer in the Lloyd’s Market. Over the past few years, Jennifer has spent a significant amount of time representing insurers and TPAs in hurricane-related bad faith, handling over 200 commercial and residential pre-litigation and litigation claims, and first-party property matters. Jennifer developed a strategy with the Lloyd’s syndicates and other carriers to coordinate with TPAs to more successfully handle pre-litigation claims and prevent future lawsuits. Utilizing the knowledge gained from handling these claims, Jennifer has also worked with various Lloyd’s syndicates to further develop their insurance policies and endorsements as well as developing claims handling guidelines to protect her clients in future claims. Jennifer has worked hard to develop a well-known reputation amongst the Special Masters and mediators handling the hurricane/bad faith property lawsuits as well as plaintiffs’ firms for being intelligent, reasonable, fair, but also assertive and very well-prepared.

After Jennifer completed her undergraduate degree, she worked in real estate development and subsequently moved to Kyiv, Ukraine, where she worked for an NGO analyzing trade and economic policy and advising government ministers and investors regarding Ukraine’s desired membership in NATO. Following law school, she practiced as a plaintiffs’ attorney in Chicago and New Orleans, litigating cases involving personal injury, multiple district litigation, and workers’ compensation, as well as helping clients with immigration issues.

Jennifer is fluent in Spanish, Ukrainian, and Polish.

Representative Matters

• • Successfully settled numerous multi-million commercial hurricane/bad faith claims, including several hotels, on behalf of Lloyd’s syndicates with a fair result, within policy limits.
  • Settled over 100 pre-litigation and litigation hurricane/bad faith residential claims on behalf of Lloyd’s syndicates.
  • Successfully represented an accounting firm in a breach of contract and accounting malpractice dispute valued at more than $60 million, wherein our client received only 5% liability for the claims asserted by one plaintiff and a zero verdict for claims asserted by the other plaintiff, entitling our client to claim fees and costs.
  • Obtained dismissal, on peremption grounds, of claims against our client, a roofing subcontractor, in a construction defect case in which a parish school board sought damages for defective roof work in excess of $1 million.
  • Obtained full dismissal on behalf of a homeowner’s association in a discrimination claim.
  • Obtained summary judgment in a bad faith and defamation claim against an insurance adjuster in federal court.

PRACTICES

EDUCATION & ADMISSIONS

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS

• New Orleans Bar Association, Board member and Editor of Briefly Speaking
• Louisiana State Bar Association
• American Immigration Lawyers Association
• National Lawyers Guild

NEWS