Bob Allen’s Resume »
Robert (Bob) D. Allen
Bob Allen founded the Law Offices of Robert D. Allen, PLLC (LORDA) on March 1, 2013 after spending nearly 30 years with top firms. Most recently, Mr. Allen was the Partner-in-Charge of the Dallas, Texas office of Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson LLP. Prior to transferring his practice to Meckler Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson, he was an International Partner/Principal at Baker & McKenzie and served as the Chair of the Insurance and Reinsurance Disputes Section of its North American Litigation Practice Group. After a clerkship on the Texas Supreme Court, Bob started his career at Vial, Hamilton, Koch & Knox as an Associate and then a Partner.
Mr. Allen’s practice is primarily focused in representing parties in trial court and appellate proceedings in insurance, commercial and tort litigation in Texas and other regions of the United States. This includes complex insurance coverage, bad faith, fraud, reinsurance and regulatory litigation matters. Mr. Allen also serves as a mediator, arbitrator, umpire, and expert witness in insurance, reinsurance, commercial and tort disputes.
Over his 30 year legal career, Bob Allen has litigated several landmark and important insurance law cases in Texas and beyond. By way of example, in 2002, Bob Allen accepted the role as National Coordinating counsel for auto insurance giant GEICO on credit scoring issues that culminated in a United States Supreme Court victory in GEICO v. Edo, 551 U.S. 47 (2007)a, a federal Fair Credit Reporting Act case that was litigated through a Portland, Oregon federal court, as well as the Ninth Circuit, before the United States Supreme Court granted GEICO’s Petition for Certiorari and eventually ruled in GEICO’s favor in a unanimous decision.
Bob was also lead counsel in the original Texas Supreme Court cases on reimbursement, Texas Association of Counties County Risk Management Pool v. Matagorda County, 52 S.W.3d 128 (Tex. 2001) aand the dual employer doctrine for workers compensation, Garza v. Exel Logistics, 161 S.W.3d 473 (Tex. 2005)a and he successfully represented Sentry in a case resulting in the first published opinion under Texas law involving advertising injury coverage, Sentry Ins. Co. v. R.J. Weber Co., Inc., 2 F.3d 554 (5th Cir. 1993).
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Recently, Bob led a team of lawyers to victory in a three-week jury trial for St. Paul Re in connection with its litigation against a Managing General Agency. The unanimous jury awarded St. Paul Re damages for breach of contract, promissory estoppel and fraud, while pouring out the Managing General Agency on its $7 million counterclaim.a The trial court entered Judgment for St. Paul Re in excess of $1 million. The legal publication The Texas Lawyer recognized this result as the number two insurance litigation verdict of 2011. Shortly after making his closing argument, while the jury was deliberating, Bob hopped a flight to New Orleans to argue the Simmons v. Liberty Mutual Fire Insurance Co. case to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which likewise ruled in his client’s favor.a
An example of Bob Allen’s complex insurance litigation experience was his role as lead courtroom counsel for the Kemper companies in the Celanese Texas environmental clean-up coverage litigation. Working with Kemper’s national litigation counsel, Bob’s team obtained two late notice partial summary judgments that eliminated over $100 million in potential exposure.
Another example of Bob Allen’s complex insurance litigation experience was his role as lead counsel representing several St. Paul/Travelers companies in three separate coverage/bad faith lawsuits in Texas, New Mexico and Alabama against HealthSouth (represented by Anderson Kill) and an excess insurer (represented by Thompson Knight) concerning hundreds of nursing home claims over multiple years against a HealthSouth subsidiary. This litigation was complicated by two run-away Texas jury verdicts against the insured handed down in consecutive weeks; one for $77 million and the other for $312 million. The litigation with HealthSouth was settled on favorable terms and the St. Paul companies obtained a complete summary judgment on the claims asserted against it by the excess carrier.a
Within the National and Texas Insurance Litigation Bars, Bob is well known and highly regarded. He is a Fellow in the American College of Coverage and Extracontractual Counsel. He is a founder and a past-Chair of the Dallas Bar Association Tort and Insurance Practice Committee and a former council member of both the Insurance Law and Consumer Law Sections of the Texas Bar Association. He is a past-Chair of the IADC’s Insurance and Reinsurance Committee. Bob has been listed in the bi-annual “Guide to the World’s Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers”. He has been recognized as a Texas “Super Lawyer”, from the inception of the designation. From 2005 on, he has been listed as one of The Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation. Based on peer review, Bob enjoys an AV Preeminent Rating from Martindale-Hubbell.
Several of the lawyers who at one time or another practiced under Bob’s tutelage have gone on to be leaders, movers and shakers in the Texas insurance and litigation bars. As a Vial Hamilton associate then partner, Bob ran a practice group whose members included David Schubert, Veronica Bates, Aaron Mitchell, Blake Evans, and as a Summer Associate Lee Shidlosky. At Baker & McKenzie and Meckler Bulger, Bob’s groups included Doug Hafer, Kelly Curnutt, Meloney Perry, Linda Dedman, Clayton Bailey, Rahkee Patel, Abel Leal and Robert Berry. “The success of these lawyers, while not surprising, is quite gratifying. To a person, they are very smart, self-motivated and fun to be around.”
The publication Who’s Who Legal described Bob as an “excellent coverage lawyer who has worked on extraordinarily large cases” and that “Allen emerges as one of the most prominent individuals in the state and is well regarded for big insurance fights.’” Bob has defended insurance companies in high stakes litigation brought by legendary Texas plaintiff’s attorneys including Joe Jamail, John O’Quinn, Ron Krist, Guy Allison, Rusty McMains and many others. He is able to effectively deal with the bar’s most aggressive policyholder attorneys. He prides himself on staying under control and focused in the most intense and confrontational situations.