The LexisNexis Insurance Law Center Advisory Board is comprised of distinguished insurance industry experts from around the country

  William T. Barker is a partner in the Chicago office of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, LLP, with a nationwide practice representing insurers in complex litigation and counseling with a view to minimizing litigation risk, including matters relating to coverage, claims handling, sales practices, risk classification and selection, agent relationships, and regulatory matters. He also counsels and litigates on matters of lawyers' professional responsibility, especially the responsibilities of insurance defense counsel. He provides expert testimony in insurance bad faith and legal malpractice cases. Among the recent cases where he has been involved on the prevailing side are (1) In re Katrina Canal Breaches, 495 F.3d 191 (5th Cir. 2007), and Chauvin v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 495 F.3d 232 (5th Cir. 2007), the major federal cases on insurance coverage for damage caused by the flooding of New Orleans and (2) Unauthorized Practice of Law Committee v. Amer. Home Assur. Co., 2008 Tex. LEXIS 233 (Tex. Mar. 28, 2008), upholding an insurer’s right, absent a conflict of interest, to use staff counsel to defend insureds and the insurer’s right to contract with whatever defense counsel it uses to be a co-client with the insured. He is a member of the Editorial Boards for the New Appleman on Insurance Law, the New Appleman Insurance Law Practice Guide (for which he was also a Consulting Author), and the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center. He is a Senior Contributing Editor and Editorial Board Director of Insurance Litigation Reporter and was Editor-in-Chief of Bad Faith Law Report prior to its merger into Insurance Litigation Report. He has published over 100 articles and speaks frequently on insurance and litigation subjects. He has been described as the leading lawyer-commentator on the connections between procedure and insurance. See Charles Silver & Kent Syverud, The Professional Responsibilities of Insurance Defense Lawyers, 45 Duke L.J. 255, 257 n.4 (1995).

  Jim Poolman was elected North Dakota Insurance Commissioner in 2000, and overwhelmingly reelected in 2004. While Insurance Commissioner, he was an outspoken leader at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, serving as their Vice-President, Chairman of the Midwestern Zone, Chairman of the Life Insurance and Annuities Committee, Executive Committee on Principles Based Reserving, Chairman of the Producer Licensing Working Group; amongst a host of other leadership posts. In North Dakota he was instrumental in preserving a competitive marketplace while passing very important consumer protections ranging in areas from privacy of consumers' medical and financial information, suitability in annuity sales, restrictions on the use of claims information, insurance fraud and life settlements, amongst others. Mr. Poolman has been a sought after speaker on numerous insurance topics around the country. In August of 2007, Mr. Poolman resigned his post to start an independent regulatory consulting practice based in Bismarck, North Dakota. Mr. Poolman received his bachelors of Business Administration degree from the University of North Dakota in 1992. Mr. Poolman also served four terms in the North Dakota House of Representatives before being elected Insurance Commissioner.

  David Rossmiller is a partner in the Insurance Coverage and Recovery section of the Business and Commercial Litigation department of Dunn Carney Allen Higgins & Tongue, in Portland, Oregon. His practice focuses on insurance coverage and recovery counseling and litigation including environmental property damage, errors and omissions and professional liability coverage, directors’ and officers’ liability, sex abuse coverage, construction defect, business interruption insurance, general commercial liability, first-party commercial property disputes, bad faith litigation, homeowner’s and automobile insurance, managed care, employer liability and other issues. Before becoming a lawyer, he was an award-winning reporter for eight years with a daily newspaper, The Phoenix ( Ariz. ) Gazette. He also writes the Insurance Coverage Law Blog, a popular and influential weblog that examines insurance coverage law and industry developments. Rossmiller is a member of the Multnomah, Federal and American Bar Associations and the Oregon State Bar. Rossmiller is licensed to practice in Oregon (1998) and in Washington (2005) is also admitted to practice before the U.S. District Court, District of Oregon (2001) He received his J.D. cum laude in 1988 from the University of Michigan and earned a B.A. cum laude in 1984 from Minot State University.

  Jeffrey W. Stempel is the William S. Boyd Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada Las Vegas, where he teaches insurance law, civil procedure, evidence, professional responsibility and pretrial litigation. Before joining the UNLV faculty in 1999, Professor Stempel was Professor of Law at Brooklyn Law School and the Fonvielle & Hinkle Professor of Litigation at Florida State University College of Law. Prior to becoming a law professor, he was a civil litigator.

  Jeffrey E. Thomas is Associate Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City, and serves as Editor-in-Chief for the New Appleman Insurance Law Practice Guide. As President of the Asia-Pacific Risk and Insurance Association, he is “obliged” to go to Sydney, Australia, for the upcoming annual meeting. His recent research has focused on insurance and terrorism, which earned him an invitation to the International Security and Counteracting Terrorism Conference in Moscow, Russia, where he enjoyed local caviar and meeting several Russian Generals (he doesn’t drink alcohol, but his comrades enjoyed the vodka). He recently presented the paper Government Support for the Terrorism Insurance Industry: Where Do We Go From Here? with Economist Thomas Russell at the Searle Center on Law, Regulation, and Economic Growth at Northwestern University. Dean Thomas is author of numerous articles on insurance law published in the United States and abroad and his work has been presented at academic and professional meetings throughout the U.S., and in Australia, China, Europe, Hong Kong, Korea, India, Taiwan, and Thailand. Dean Thomas previously served as a Bigelow Teaching Fellow at the University of Chicago, a Fulbright Fellow in China, and the Tiera M. Farrow Faculty Scholar at UMKC. Dean Thomas enjoys travel and good food. Recently, he has particularly enjoyed sweet cherries, Australian black licorice and Absinthe chocolate truffles.

  Serena Wellen is the Director, Insurance, Health Care & Workers' Compensation, at LexisNexis Matthew Bender, San Francisco, CA.

  Karen C. Yotis is the site administrator for the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center and maintains an editorial focus on regulatory compliance and life insurance issues. Ms. Yotis is a member of the LexisNexis Insurance Compliance and the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center Advisory Boards. She previously served as the editor of Mealey’s Insurance Regulatory Compliance Report and her commentary has appeared in Viewpoint and other insurance industry publications. Ms. Yotis received a J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1989 and earned a B.A. summa cum laude in 1984 from the University of Illinois. Ms. Yotis likes to hang out at the horse barn with her daughter and wishes she had time to read more books.