Directors And Officers Insurance: First Steps To Obtaining Client Coverage

Published in Criminal Justice, Volume 25, Number 4, Winter 2011. © 2011 by the American Bar Association. Reproduced with permission.
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Let's say you're a white-collar defense lawyer and you've just been retained by a new client—a director or officer of a company facing an investigation, a lawsuit, or maybe an indictment. Before you go to work doing what you do best—getting your client out of whatever white-collar trouble he or she is facing— think about how directors and officers (D&O) insurance can help. You probably already know that D&O insurance can sometimes advance defense costs to enable your client to fund your work, and you probably know that D&O insurance will sometimes indemnify your client for a civil judgment.