Workers' Compensation Counsel

JOB DESCRIPTION

As a member of the Global Litigation team, Workers’ Compensation Counsel will provide legal support to the Workers’ Compensation Claims teams in areas of litigation, coverage, and compliance. This is a work-from-the-office position, with some occasional flexibility, reporting to the Philadelphia office.

Major Duties and Responsibilities:

• Litigation: Oversee civil actions involving workers’ compensation disputes across the country involving extra-contractual and bad faith issues. Manage relationships with outside counsel and third-party administrators; provide strategic direction for litigation; assist with discovery and deposition preparation; and serve as company representative at trial.

• Appeals: Manage and provide strategic direction for appeals to state intermediate and appeals courts. Provide guidance to management about potential precedent, publicity, and broader industry impact for appellate matters.

• Regulatory Compliance and Complaint Response: Work with the compliance team to respond to regulator requests and inquiries. Oversee and ensure proper response of Department of Insurance and Better Business Bureau complaints including investigation, coordination of responses, and tracking and trend analysis.

• Coverage: Provide coverage advice on workers’ compensation matters with complex coverage concerns, including policy language interpretation, coverage position letters, hammer letters, and reviewing contractual obligations under the policy for both Chubb and its insureds.

• Government Affairs: Provide insight to the State Government Affairs (SGA) team about state-level loss and litigation trends in the workers’ compensation area. Lead liaison between SGA and the Workers’ Compensation claims teams to research the impact of any notifications, coordinate opinions of proposed legislation changes and craft responses to SGA with an analysis of the impact to the discipline/industry.

• International: Provide support on matters of Employers’ Liability and Foreign Voluntary coverages to ensure delivery of a consistent technical product across the discipline for unique legal issues, and international coverage support.

• Claims Support: Provide practical and strategic advice to internal business partners, including underwriting and claims departments, regarding coverage, regulatory compliance, Medicare and workers’ compensation legal issues.

• Training and Guidance: Provide training to internal business partners on a wide variety of compliance and litigation-related topics. Drive quality, technical excellence and execution of best practices guidelines

Key Accountability Areas:

• Develop key relationships with internal business teams to ensure holistic solutions to business units including, Quality Assurance, Regulatory Compliance, Coverage Positions, and State Government Affairs.
• Communicate in person and in writing with business partners on matters of significance.
• Identify regulatory and litigation trends, track and monitor changes, communicate updates and analyses. Conduct research to evaluate issues and support recommendations.
• Take initiative, be a team player and problem solver.

ABOUT US

QUALIFICATIONS

• Minimum 8+ years of workers’ compensation and/or coverage litigation experience with a law firm and/or an insurance company.
• Experience litigating insurance-related and extra-contractual disputes.
• Excellent analytical and communication skills; superior writing ability.

Educational and Professional Requirements:

• Juris Doctor degree from an accredited U.S. law school.
• Licensed to practice law in the U.S.
• Undergraduate degree from an accredited U.S. or foreign university or college.
• Strong technical background in the workers’ compensation discipline.
• Project/Change Management experience that involves coordination of cross-discipline teams.
• Proven analytical, organizational and communication skills to promote business solutions and effective interaction with internal/external business partners.
• Experience with Influence Management initiatives that demand a high degree of collaboration and teamwork.
• Business travel within the US required periodically to work with leadership teams and state regulator representatives.