James Kitces

Practice Areas

Insurance clients turn to James when they need highly skilled counsel to handle complex, high-stakes first-party property, third-party liability, and reinsurance coverage matters. Clients often say they deeply appreciate working with James because of his meticulous attention to detail, his willingness to go the extra mile, and his responsiveness. James thoroughly enjoys dissecting insurance policies, solving complex problems, and most of all, winning. James was drawn to Robins Kaplan because of the firm’s stellar reputation for obtaining pioneering court decisions in his practice area.

James has regularly secured favorable results for clients. James’s insurance practice varies, and he has experience representing clients in matters involving:

First-party property coverage: James represents clients in property and business interruption litigation arising from fire, explosion, flood, hurricane, mold, construction and design defect, and bad faith claims.

Third-party liability coverage: James represents clients in a variety of third-party liability disputes, including construction defect, intellectual property, and mass torts.

Subrogation: James maintains an active subrogation practice and he has secured a number of multi-million-dollar recoveries for clients.

Reinsurance: Before joining Robins Kaplan LLP, James focused on insurance-reinsurance dispute resolution at a national law firm. He has continued this work at Robins Kaplan, advising large international reinsurers on coverage issues, potential litigation, and reinsurance claims.

Arbitration: James represents insurance clients in arbitration proceedings. For example, an international insurance client was prematurely forced to arbitrate a dispute concerning a large, sophisticated construction matter. While the adversary attempted to rush to trial, James and his team proceeded to arbitration, marshalled a tremendous amount of evidence, and through careful and strategic preparation of the fact and expert witnesses, the client won in resounding fashion.

Education