Brook B. Roberts
Partner
Austin
brook.roberts@lw.com
+1.858.523.3983
PRACTICES
- Complex Commercial Litigation
- Insurance Counseling & Recovery
- Litigation & Trial
INDUSTRIES
EDUCATION
- JD, University of Arizona, James E. Rogers College of Law, 2000
summa cum laude - BA in Finance, Arizona State University, 1993
summa cum laude
LANGUAGES SPOKEN
PROFILE
Brook Roberts is the former Managing Partner of the firm’s San Diego office. He previously served as a Global Co-Chair of the Insurance Counseling & Recovery Practice. Brook advises clients on complex insurance coverage and bad faith disputes, involving a wide range of environmental, property, casualty, investment, and professional liability matters.
Brook has represented a host of Fortune 500 companies in a variety of complex business litigation matters in federal and state courts, and before domestic and international arbitration panels.
He has extensive experience securing coverage for policyholders under virtually every type of insurance available, including:
- Business interruption claims
- Comprehensive general liability
- Directors and officers (D&O) liability
- Errors & omissions coverage
- Environmental impairment liability
- Intellectual property and theft
- Builders risk
- Property and casualty policies
- Political risk
Prior to joining Latham & Watkins, Brook served as law clerk to Judge Barry G. Silverman of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
EXPERIENCE
Brook's recent cases include representing:
- GE in the successful resolution of a US$100 million bad faith and coverage litigation for environmental losses sustained by its subsidiary, United Nuclear Corporation
- Montrose Chemical Corporation in a US$200 million environmental coverage lawsuit. He led the Montrose team before the California Supreme Court in one of the most high-profile insurance coverage disputes in the nation, winning a unanimous victory from in Montrose Chem. Corp. v. Super. Ct. (2020), a landmark win establishing policyholders’ right to “electively stack” multiple years of excess policies to insure against continuous loss claims
- Fluor Corporation and its affiliates in various litigations to secure insurance coverage and prosecute bad faith actions against various carriers for failing to defend and indemnify:
- US$220 million recovery for asbestos liabilities after obtaining a precedent-setting victory in the California Supreme Court (Fluor Corp. v. Super. Ct. (2015))
- US$290 million recovery for professional liability claims arising from the nickel/cobalt facility in Western Australia
- US$310 million pending bad faith case arising from the carrier’s failure to settle bodily injury claims against Fluor
Thought Leadership
- Co-author, “California Supreme Court Defines Scope of Advertising Injury Coverage,” FC&S Legal: The Insurance Coverage Law Information Center, 2014
- Co-author, “Continental: policyholders entitled to full limits on all triggered policies,” Daily Journal, 2012