Dorothea W. Regal

Practice Areas

As head of the Insurance Recovery Group at Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney—the women-owned litigation boutique she co-founded 30 years ago—Dorothea W. Regal has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars for corporate policyholders from insurers. She has extensive litigation and arbitration experience in the U.S. and internationally, securing policyholder recoveries in complex, high-stakes coverage disputes involving environmental, asbestos, and products liability claims, including long-tail claims arising from decades-old injuries or exposures under old occurrence-based liability policies. She also handles D&O, E&O and employment practices liability claims as well as property insurance and business interruption coverage.

Among her notable matters, Dorothea and her team won a groundbreaking trial court ruling for Syngenta in New Jersey state court in a $170 million insurance coverage dispute over nationwide class-action product liability claims alleging property damage from decades of commercial use of the company’s herbicide, and in another case won a trial for Syngenta in the Delaware Superior Court establishing the primary insurer’s coverage obligation over thousands of personal injury claims allegedly arising from exposure to another product and secured a precedential decision from the Delaware Supreme Court upholding the trial court’s two summary judgment rulings in favor of Syngenta on the issue of whether a threat of a claim constituted a claim under Delaware law.

Career

Before founding Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney in 1996, Dorothea practiced at White & Case LLP, where she litigated commercial, banking, and employment disputes, including disputes in the highly specialized area of letter of credit law. Dorothea has successfully handled many letter of credit cases both at White & Case and continuing at Hoguet Newman Regal & Kenney, representing banks, their customers, or beneficiaries. She has authored several publications on letters of credit and has lectured on that topic for the Practicing Law Institute and the New York County Lawyers’ Association.

Professional Memberships

Dorsey is a Fellow of the American College of Coverage Counsel and co-chairs the Business Interruption Insurance Subcommittee of the ABA Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee. She is also a member of the ABA Women in Insurance Network.

Publications

Throughout her career, Dorothea has authored several publications – including the New York section of the Chambers and Partners Insurance and Reinsurance New York Practice Guide since 2024 – and has lectured for the Practicing Law Institute and the New York County Lawyers’ Association. She is a frequent presenter on insurance law at bar association meetings and professional forums, and recently presented at ACCC’s 2023 Annual Meeting on “Getting to Yes – Negotiating Settlement of Coverage for Longtail Claims.”

Other presentations on insurance coverage include: “Risky Business with Cyber Insurance — Sunglasses Not Optional”; “Is There Coverage for Time Element Losses Incurred or Ascertained (Arguably) Outside the Period of Recovery?”; “Clawbacks: Will Your D&O Policy Provide Coverage?”; “The Professional Services Exclusion: What are Professional Services Anyway?”; “Aftermath of a Disaster: Emergency Response and Crisis Management Following a Catastrophic Environmental Loss and the Role of Insurance Counsel”; and “My Building Survived the Storm, but Will My Business?”

Expert in these Jurisdictions

Dorothea is admitted to practice in:

New York State Courts

Delaware State Courts (including Delaware Supreme Court)

U.S. Federal Courts (various districts)

International Arbitration (including Swiss arbitration forums)

Domestic Arbitration Forums

Education

Awards