Eugene Anderson

Eugene Anderson created insurance law as we know it, and is an icon in the field of insurance law.  Anderson’s life story demonstrates what you can accomplish with a great brain and a lot of hard work.  Gene went from being an orphan to Harvard Law School (the result of hitch hiking with a lawyer who was so impressed that he put in a good word with the admissions board), to the Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York under Robert Morganthau. He went on to start the law firm of Anderson Kill in New York, through which he handled some of the largest insurance cases in the world. Some say that Anderson's career fighting insurers was the inspiration for John Grisham’s The Rainmaker.  In addition to handling insurance cases ranging from toxic torts to 9/11 claims, Anderson undertook a decade long fight on behalf of the families of Holocaust victims against the German and Swiss insurance companies that had never paid on their life insurance policies.  See In Re: Assicurazioni Generali S.P.A. Holocaust Insurance Litigation‎, 228 F.Supp.2d 348 (SDNY 2002). He eventually obtained payments of $2 billion in unpaid life insurance claims for their families.  

Gene took a keen interest in Trial Guides just as the company got started, was in regular contact with founder Aaron DeShaw brainstorming insurance cases, and wrote the introduction to David Berardinelli’s “From Good Hands to Boxing Gloves.”