Singular Focus, Undivided Loyalties, Unparalleled Strength
In these challenging times, corporations, non-profit institutions and public entities face 
unprecedented risks both at home and abroad... In this environment, a strategic plan to maximize coverage and enforcement prospects is absolutely critical to any organization's long term business success. Retaining seasoned, qualified, un-biased counsel to assist you should be step one in the plan. Wood & Bender is the nation's leading law firm in the fast-growing practice of insurance policy enforcement. It's all we do. We represent policyholder interests exclusively, and help organizations of all types optimize the benefits of insurance coverage as part of a comprehensive risk management strategy.
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In Focus
Associates to explain insurance enforcement to general counsels
In June, the Firm will be a sponsor at the General Counsel Summit in Las Vegas. More than 100 general counsels and outside law firms will meet to discuss current events in corporate litigation and transactions practice, including insurance-policy enforcement. Wood & Bender attorneys will emphasize the need to choreograph insurance claims to trigger coverage and avoid exclusions before insurers' views become set in stone.
Information: Contact David Bender at dew@wood-bender.com.
Partner speaks at prestigious European conference
On February 8, 2008, David E. Wood presented a paper at a conference on challenges presented by insolvent and financially troubled companies, given by the Center for International Legal Studies in Salzburg, Austria. Mr. Wood's paper was entitled "Risk And Insurance Management Strategies For European Companies With United States Operations: Hedging Against A Downturn In The American Economy" and was well-received by an audience of German, English, Irish, Romanian, French, Italian and American attorneys.
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Information: Contact David Wood at dew@wood-bender.com.
Partner to present overview of insurance law to attorneys
On Jan. 23, David P. Bender, Jr. will present a seminar on "Insurance Basics" as part of Minimum Continuing Legal Education - an ongoing learning program required of all attorneys practicing in California. This session in Ventura, Calif., will familiarize participants with commonly used insurance terms and will offer strategies for securing coverage for denied claims as well as how to advise clients/policyholders on the levels of coverage they need to address their exposures. Attendees will receive 1.5 hours of MCLE credit.
Information: Contact David Bender at dew@wood-bender.com.
Seminar highlights Firm's expertise on cumis counsel
Partner David E. Wood and Senior Counsel David A. Shaneyfelt were co-presenters at a Minimum Continuing Legal Education seminar on "The Right to Cumis Counsel in Construction Defect Claims" in October of last year. The two explained how policyholders can be at risk when insurers balance competing interests. The session also covered conditions that may require insurance companies to pay for a second, independent attorney to defend policyholders against a claim, and how to identify the conflicts of interest that arise (both generally, and within the construction industry) that trigger an appointment of independent counsel. The presenters also dealt with how disputes can be avoided in relation to that appointment.
Firm backs nonpartisan legal advocacy center
The Firm strongly supports the Atlantic Legal Foundation, a nonprofit, public-interest law firm that advocates for individual liberties, free enterprise, limited, effective government as well as sound science in the courtroom. Atlantic Legal provides effective and decisive legal representation, without fee, to parents, scientists, educators and other individuals, corporations and trade associations.
The foundation also does invaluable work in the area of corporate governance, working hard to protect America's economic prosperity while insisting that corporations make themselves more openly accountable to customers and shareholders. Atlantic Legal's cases in the past year alone have resulted in the protection of the rights of thousands of schoolchildren, employees, independent business owners and entrepreneurs. In case after case, Atlantic Legal brings about favorable resolutions for individuals and corporations who continue to be challenged by those who use the legal process to deny fundamental rights and liberties.
Green Waste Recycler Agromin
Selects Wood & Bender As Corporate Legal Counsel
News Release
January 29, 2008
CAMARILLO, CALIF.--Agromin, the second largest green waste recycler in California and a premium soil manufacturer, has selected the Ventura law firm of Wood & Bender as its corporate legal counsel.
Agromin, the green waste recycler for 19 southern and central California cities is projecting strong company growth as cities and businesses plan for new, stricter conservation laws, says Agromin's CFO Bill Camarillo. "We needed a law firm that could help us in our growth process," Camarillo says. "Wood & Bender has the experience and legal ability, the staffing and infrastructure to support our growth. The firm will be a huge asset to us."
"Agromin is a cutting edge company that helps our community and our environment," says David Bender, Wood & Bender partner. "Agromin enables all of us to live better lives because of what it does. We're very excited to represent Agromin so it can reach its growth goals."
Wood & Bender maintains a national practice representing Fortune 100 companies as well as companies experiencing rapid growth.
Agromin, based in Camarillo, collects about 20,000 tons a month of yard trimmings from homes and businesses in Ventura, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles counties. It cleans and processes the green waste so it becomes mulch and other soil amendments, and then redistributes it back to the soil on farms, landscapes and in consumer products.
Partner throws heart into children's charities
Firm co-founder David E. Wood devotes many volunteer hours to children's causes, especially those that help special-needs or at-risk kids.
Mr. Wood recently was named secretary of the board of directors of Casa Pacifica Centers for Children and Families, located on a rural 23-acre campus five miles from the Pacific Ocean. Casa Pacifica serves abused, neglected and severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents in Southern California. Casa Pacifica offers residential treatment, emergency shelter care, assessment, educational programs, family support, medical services, psychiatric/psychological treatment and a variety of community-based interventions to children and their families.
He has been on the Casa Pacifica board since 2003.
Mr. Wood also serves on the board of directors for the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo, which provides a healthy place for kids to learn core values as well as educational and life skills necessary to good citizenship. He has been a director of the club since 1997.
Associate to lead young attorneys group
Associate Katie Pietrolungo will serve this year as president of the Barristers of the Ventura County (Calif.) Bar Association - an organization of attorneys who are either younger than 36 or who have been in practice for fewer than seven years. To kick off her term, Wood & Bender LLP played host to the group's luncheon meeting on Jan. 8.
On Jan. 26, the Barristers will present "Bridging the Gap" for six Minimum Continuing Legal Education credits. The session will offer a judicial perspective panel featuring Ventura County Superior Court Presiding Judge Colleen Toy White, as well as judges David W. Long and Kevin J. McGee. Along with more MCLE programs, the group's 2008 events will include the second annual Barristers' Bowling Night and a Judges' Pizza Night.
Ventura County Journalist Colleen Cason to Head Enforce Legal Magazine August, 2007
Colleen Cason, a long-time Ventura County journalist, has been named publisher-editor of Enforce magazine.
Published by the Ventura, Calif., law firm of Wood & Bender LLP Enforce provides news and analysis in the field of insurance-policy enforcement. Wood & Bender is a local law firm with a national practice representing corporate policyholders when their insurance carriers fail to pay as promised on claims.
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Lumber Party
Los Angeles Daily Journal
July 23, 2007
In June, 15 attorneys and staff from Ventura-based insurance policy enforcement firm Wood & Bender helped build two Habitat for Humanity homes in Villa Cesar Chavez, an Oxnard, California low-income housing development.
The project was headed by Associate Caroline Hurtado, a newly appointed member of the Ventura County Habitat for Humanity board of directors. Partner David Wood pushes a wheelbarrow.
Recent Success Stories
The Firm focuses solely upon insurance policy enforcement matters. Here are some of their recent engagements and achievements.
- For a Fortune 500 retailer, the Firm recovered $25 million under partially-manuscripted umbrella policy arising out of a premises liability claim
- The Firm represented a consortium of builders of a $180 million public works project in enforcing claims arising from the design professionals' errors and omissions under a project-specific insurance policy
- In response to an SEC investigation and shareholder derivative litigation over allegations of stock option backdating, the firm represents a Fortune 100 technology company in disputes with insurers over coverage for $13 million in defense expenses incurred to date
The recent shooting at a Cleveland, Ohio, high school, again brings to the forefront the legal and insurance implications of these assaults. Here's partner David Bender's analysis of another such tragedy.
The Lessons of the Virginia Tech Massacre
Within days of the Virginia Tech (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) massacre in which a disturbed student shot and killed 32 fellow students and faculty, a colleague remarked that he was surprised we did not have shooting rampages in schools and workplaces on a monthly basis. When I queried him further, I expected to get a discussion on the nation's gun control policies. I did not know my colleague's position but wrongly presumed that he would tell me that it was either lax gun control laws or unconstitutional restrictions on gun ownership that served as the basis for his comment.
Instead, my colleague told me that his statement was based on his view that, as a society, we have become afraid of our own good judgment about people and about what is and is not acceptable behavior. On further reflection, in particular with respect to the occasions when I have been asked to render legal advice concerning potential or actual incidents of workplace and school violence, I realized the truth of my colleague's observation.
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Stock Option Backdating Claims: Are They Covered?
By: David E. Wood, Timothy S. Plum, Jeffrey A. Kiburtz, Wood & Bender, LLP
Since late 2005, the practice of backdating employee stock options ("ESOs") has resulted in thousands of government investigations and lawsuits, criminal proceedings, and private lawsuits brought by shareholders and corporate employees.
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