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Mitchell Dolin
Mitchell F. Dolin
Partner
Washington +1 202 662 5210 mdolin@cov.com Download V-card
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Mitchell Dolin, who co-chairs Covington’s highly regarded global insurance recovery practice, has successfully handled a wide array of matters in trial and appellate courts across the country, domestic and international arbitral proceedings, and high-stakes mediations. For more than 30 years, his focus has been on the representation of corporate and other policyholders in pursuing coverage for a broad range of underlying liabilities, including antitrust, employment, environmental, intellectual property, mass tort, media, professional liability, and shareholder claims, as well as for first-party property, business interruption, cargo, event cancellation, and political risk losses. Mr. Dolin has been ranked by Chambers USA as one of the nation’s top dozen or so policyholder lawyers for each of the past several years, and the most recent editions of Chambers describe him as "universally lauded for his deep policyholder experience and knowledge," noting that he is “’highly effective’ in the insurance arena,” “held in high esteem,” and “widely viewed as a ‘very experienced and well respected’ lawyer.” For several years, he also chaired the firm’s arbitration practice group and has served as an advocate and arbitrator in domestic and international arbitrations.

  • In the mass-tort field, he has litigated and arbitrated coverage disputes concerning medical devices, pharmaceutical products, and other tort claims for Cardinal Health, Dow Corning, Eli Lilly, the National Football League, and numerous other clients. He led the firm's efforts as special insurance counsel to both Owens Corning and Congoleum, each of which resolved its asbestos coverage disputes and successfully emerged from bankruptcy. For Owens Corning, he secured approximately $1.5 billion in coverage for asbestos claims in a series of lawsuits, arbitrations, and mediations.
  • His directors and officers, professional liability, employment practices, and media liability insurance representations have included work on coverage matters for companies, officers and directors, law firms, universities, and others, including for clients such as Autoliv, Booz Allen Hamilton, Martha Stewart Living, PG&E’s outside directors, S&P Global, and UBS, with litigated victories as lead counsel in such cases as HCC v. Sprint Nextel, 2010 WL 4852649 (E.D. Va.), NFL v. Vigilant, 36 A.D.3d 207 (N.Y. 2006), and Owens Corning v. National Union, 257 F.3d 484 (6th Cir. 2001).
  • Other previous representations include: Exxon in coverage litigation and international arbitration resulting in insurance recoveries of $780 million for Valdez-related losses; Dow Corning in various cases concerning coverage for breast implant claims, including one which led to a successful resolution after a federal appeals court held that an adverse 2-to-1 arbitral award was a non-binding prelude to litigation (Dow Corning v. Safety Nat’l, 335 F.3d 742 (8th Cir. 2003)) and another in which a federal court ruled that an insurer seeking to claw back a settlement payment was subject to a set-off defense to account for reinsurance recoveries (In re Dow Corning, 2010 WL 3927738 (E.D. Mich.)); UBS Real Estate Investments, the mortgage lender to the retail leaseholder at the World Trade Center, in the landmark 9/11 property insurance litigation (World Trade Center Properties v. Hartford, 345 F.3d 154 (2d Cir. 2003)); then-President Clinton in connection with coverage for 1990s private party litigation; the American Association of Blood Banks in coverage litigation concerning HIV-tainted blood lawsuits; Oglebay Norton in pursuing coverage for asbestos and workplace harassment claims; SIG Arms in securing defense coverage for lawsuits filed by various government entities (SIG Arms v. Employers, 122 F. Supp. 255 (D.N.H. 2000)); Nestle in a precedent-setting environmental coverage lawsuit (Nestle v. Aetna, 842 F. Supp. 125 (D.N.J. 1993)); coalitions of policyholders as amici curiae in landmark insurance cases such as Goodyear v. Aetna, 95 Ohio St. 3d 512 (2002), Frontier v. Merchants, 91 N.Y.2d 169 (1997), and North River v. CIGNA Re, 52 F.3d 1194 (3d Cir. 1995); and serving earlier in his career on the defense teams for a major western railroad in the coal slurry pipeline antitrust litigation and a leading French fragrance manufacturer in dealer termination antitrust litigation.

Pro Bono

  • Represented organizations advocating as amici curiae in defense of gun control measures, including in U.S. v. Castleman, 134 S. Ct. 1405 (2014) and Woollard v. Gallagher, 712 F.3d 585 (4th Cir. 2013).
  • Successfully argued for vacation of client's death sentence in State v. Tokman, 564 So. 2d 1339 (Miss. 1990), and represented client in subsequent trial court proceedings that resulted in the disqualification of the Hinds County District Attorney’s office and a negotiated plea.   
  • Represented amici curiae in Supreme Court cases involving civil rights issues, including McMillian v. Monroe County, 520 U.S. 781 (1997), Patterson v. McLean Credit Union, 491 U.S. 164 (1989), and St. Francis College v. Al-Khazraji, 481 U.S. 604 (1987).
  • Represented organizations challenging federal agency action in City of Alexandria v. Slater, 198 F.3d 862 (D.C. Cir. 1999) and Women Involved in Farm Economics v. USDA, 876 F.2d 994 (D.C. Cir. 1989).

Memberships and Affiliations

  • American Bar Association, previously served as co-chair of the Litigation Section's Task Force on the Judiciary and its Federal Legislation Committee.
  • American Bar Foundation, Fellow (elected 2013)
  • American College of Coverage and Extracontractual Counsel, Fellow (elected 2014)
  • American Law Institute, Life Member (elected 1992) and currently serves on Members Consultative Groups for the ALI Restatement of the Law of Liability Insurance and for the ALI Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration  
  • CPR International Institute’s Regional Panel of Neutrals (2003-)
  • D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility Hearing Committee No. 3, Chair (1997-1999)
  • Human Rights First, Board Member Emeritus (2013-) and Board Member (1994-2004)
  • Law360, Insurance Editorial Advisory Board (2011)
  • National Eagle Scout Association, Member
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  • Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2017) (ranked in Band 1 for Insurance both nationally and in DC for more than ten years)
  • Benchmark (2017) (National Litigation Star)
  • The Best Lawyers in America (2017) (Arbitration, Commercial Litigation, Insurance Law, International Arbitration, and Mediation)   
  • The Best Lawyers in America (2013) (Washington Insurance Lawyer of the Year)
  • The Legal 500 US (2017) ("Leading Lawyer" for Insurance and “Hall of Fame” recipient)
  • Washingtonian (2011) (Best Lawyers)    
  • Legal Times (Feb. 26, 2007) (profiled as one of ten "leading lawyers" in the insurance field)
  • International Commercial Litigation magazine, "Commercial Prosecutors of the Year" (1997)
  • Benjamin J. Cardozo Citation of Merit, Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (1987)

Practices

Industries

Education

New York University School of Law, J.D.

  • Law Review

Tufts University, B.A.

  • summa cum laude

Judicial Clerkship

  • Hon. Charles Clark, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit

Bar Admissions

  • District of Columbia
  • U.S. District Court, District of Columbia
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Michigan
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
  • U.S. Supreme Court