Biography | Michelle R. Press

Michelle Press focuses her practice on complex insurance coverage, litigation and transactional matters. She is a seasoned trial attorney who has been lead trial counsel in numerous insurance-related cases that resulted in favorable judgments or verdicts and she has been published by several California Courts of Appeal as well as the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition to defending her insurance company clients from extra-contractual and related claims, Michelle has extensive experience in prosecuting and trying complex mass recovery actions and handling general civil litigation on various topics.

Michelle is an experienced attorney who is comfortable handling highly complex insurance and defense matters, and she is known for her focus on achieving efficient, creative resolutions to litigated and non-litigated matters that protect her clients and avoid the time and expense of protracted litigation. Michelle has been selected to present the California Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations to the London (Re)insurance Market at the Old Library at Lloyd's in conjunction with the LMA for the past four years based on her unconventional seminar presentation style.

Areas of Focus

(RE)Insurance Coverage, Monitoring and Management
Michelle’s practice includes providing insurance coverage advice on a variety of subjects; defending insurance carriers in extra-contractual litigation; acting as monitoring/coverage counsel for insurance programs; prosecuting mass recovery actions; litigating rescission, contribution/subrogation and declaratory relief actions; auditing and rehabilitating insurance programs for the London (re)insurance market; defending class actions; and handling a broad range of state and federal appeals.

Michelle has handled a wide variety of insurance monitoring and coverage matters involving Construction Defects; Rescission; Reinsurance; APH; Property; Lawyers Professional Liability; Employers Professional Liability; Marine Employers Liability; Professional Indemnity; Theft, Insurance Fraud; Marine; Transportation; Uninsured Motorist; and a host of other types of insurance claims and litigation arising out of Commercial General Liability, Claims-Made, Errors and Omissions, Directors and Officers, Property, Personal and Commercial Umbrella, Homeowners, Automobile and Business Policies, as well as various types of manuscript policies such as Commercial General Liability Gap Policies.

Michelle has extensive experience in program and claims management, with a focus on conducting comprehensive and efficient audits that are geared toward evaluating and improving the handling and profitability of entire programs. These audits have resulted in millions of dollars of savings or reimbursement for her clients, the closing of a significant percentage of open files, and in many cases, a reduction in the average payments being made per claim. In addition to her auditing work, Michelle is experienced in the rehabilitation of programs that suffer from negative loss ratios through development of claims protocols and associated training for management of the program and the handling of individual claims.

Complex Tort & General Casualty
Michelle is experienced in the defense of actions involving allegations of professional indemnity, unfair claims practices, habitability, general liability, contract law, sexual harassment, wrongful termination, violation of the California Labor Code, personal injury, wrongful death, employment discrimination, violations of the American with Disabilities Act, uninsured motorist, advertising injury, Jones Act allegations, and in the defense of class actions.

Education

Boston University School of Law (J.D., 1992)
- cum laude, G. Joseph Tauro Scholar
Boston University (B.S., 1989)
- summa cum laude, 1989 School of Management Award for Outstanding Achievement

Bar Admissions

California

Court Admissions

U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
U.S. District Court, Northern District of California
U.S. District Court, Central District of California
U.S. District Court, Southern District of California

Professional Affiliations

Council of Litigation Management (CLM)
Golden Key National Honor Society
Beta Gamma Sigma National Honor Society

Awards & Honors

AV® Preeminent™ Rated by Martindale-Hubbell
Rated by American Lawyer and Martindale-Hubbell as a Top Rated Lawyer in Appellate Law, 2013

Michelle Press focuses her practice on complex insurance coverage, litigation and transactional matters. She is a seasoned trial attorney who has been lead trial counsel in numerous insurance-related cases that resulted in favorable judgments or verdicts and she has been published by several California Courts of Appeal as well as the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In addition to defending her insurance company clients from extra-contractual and related claims, Michelle has extensive experience in prosecuting and trying complex mass recovery actions and handling general civil litigation on various topics.

Michelle is an experienced attorney who is comfortable handling highly complex insurance and defense matters, and she is known for her focus on achieving efficient, creative resolutions to litigated and non-litigated matters that protect her clients and avoid the time and expense of protracted litigation. Michelle has been selected to present the California Unfair Claims Settlement Practices Regulations to the London (Re)insurance Market at the Old Library at Lloyd's in conjunction with the LMA for the past four years based on her unconventional seminar presentation style.

News Briefs

Press and Felder Secure Summary Judgment in Premises Liability Case

May 10, 2023

Hendry & Press Foil Plaintiff’s Assertion that Policy Cancellation Notice Was Never Received

Diana Hendry (Of Counsel-Madison, NJ) and Michelle Press (Partner-Los Angeles, CA) obtained a motion for summary judgment on behalf of an insurance company and broker in a case disputing the cancellation of a homeowners’ policy. The plaintiff homeowner applied through his mortgage broker for a homeowners’ policy, which was issued based on the information provided. Shortly thereafter, the insurer discovered that the information provided by the homeowner was incorrect and timely sent a notice of cancellation to the policyholder by U.S. Mail and email. The home was destroyed by fire many months later; plaintiff’s claim was denied and the plaintiff asserted he had never received notice of the cancellation. In support of their motion for summary judgment, Diana and Michelle submitted a certificate of mailing and the emails, which the Court found sufficient to meet the client’s initial burden of demonstrating that it complied with the cancellation requirements in New York Insurance Law and therefore was entitled to the presumption that notice was received. (The emails bolstered the proof of mailing, but were themselves insufficient to comply with the Insurance Law requirement.) However, the plaintiff’s claim that he did not receive the notice was insufficient to meet his burden to prove that the insurer failed to conform with the strict statutory cancellation requirements. On that basis, the Court dismissed the coverage action against our client.

Diana M. Hendry and Michelle R. Press