Jeffrey T. Bolson
Practice Areas
Professional Liability, including Employment Practice Liability; Broker Errors and Omissions and Real Estate Brokers; Insurance Policy Interpretation; Bad Faith Defense; Entertainment Insurance; Excess Insurance; Reinsurance; Intellectual Property; Litigation; Commercial Litigation.
Admitted
1981, California; 1983, U.S. District Court, Central, Northern, Southern and Eastern Districts of California and U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Law School
McGeorge School of Law, J.D.
Member
State Bar of California; American Bar Association; The Association of Trial Lawyers of America.
Biography
Jeffrey T. Bolson has tried cases to verdict in diverse areas from employment, bodily injury, trade secret, labor, intellectual property and all facets of film and television production, from financing and guarantees, through disputes arising from production delays and damages.
Mr. Bolson graduated from the University of Redlands in 1978 with a bachelor of Science degree, and with distinction from the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, where he received the Order of the Coif, in 1981. After graduation from law school, Mr. Bolson served as judicial clerk of the Honorable F. Steele Langford, United States Magistrate Judge, United States District Court of the Northern District of California from 1981 through 1982.
Mr. Bolson entered private practice in Los Angeles, and for nearly thirty years has devoted his efforts almost exclusively to litigation and litigation avoidance. Mr. Bolson has practiced in, conducted or supervised in excess of seven hundred litigated civil and commercial matters, as well as criminal defense of corporations and labor disputes. His emphasis in the recent past has been in the entertainment industry, intellectual property and trade secret including matters involving actors, singers, writers, directors and producers.
Mr. Bolson was a Partner at Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack in Los Angeles, California, which he left to start his own firm Bolson, Nishimura & Saunders, which merged into Hahn & Bolson LLP. Mr. Bolson now practices primarily with Cochran, Davis & Associates, P.C., with which he has been associated since 2006.
As an outgrowth of his experiences in litigation, Mr. Bolson drafted or participated in the drafting of insurance policies ranging from general liability for the construction industry, to errors and omissions and production package policies for the entertainment industry. Several of his policies were considered groundbreaking in their niche markets and are in use by several insurance companies. In addition to his work drafting policies, Mr. Bolson has lectured risk managers, underwriters and claims personnel, and was frequently retained to troubleshoot problematic cases, often resolving cases within a few days of his retention.
Mr. Bolson has lectured extensively to California attorneys on various aspects of ligation, and has participated in programs and seminars on behalf of trade and industry groups in both insurance and entertainment, primarily in litigation avoidance and dispute resolution techniques. Mr. Bolson is a member of the American Trial Lawyers Association; has served as a mediator for the Los Angeles County Bar Association in attorney-client disputes; is a past co-Chair of the American Bar Association Professional Standards Committee; and has served on the Los Angeles County Bar Association Insurance Committee. Mr. Bolson is a member of the Intellectual Property, Litigation and Insurance Law sections of the State Bar of California. Mr. Bolson is a founder of NationsBuilders (now NBIS), an insurance holding company and of its subsidiary reinsurer, as well as ProBuilders Insurance Company, a Washington D.C.-domiciled Risk Retention Group, which was the first Risk Retention Group organized specifically for small and medium sized contractors and developers, growing from a startup company to over $100 million in premium in less than five years, with outstanding underwriting success.
Mr. Bolson began his representation of insurers and their insureds in the entertainment industry, including film, television, D.I.C.E., and music, in 1987, providing defense, coverage and first party representation in cases and claims arising under Entertainment Package, Producers and Directors Errors and Omissions, and Completion Guarantee, beginning with Chubb and Certain Underwriters through their managing U.S. Underwrite, and later for CNA Insurance Company through the same managing general agency. Mr. Bolson was later retained by TransAmerica Insurance Company as part of a team which re-drafted and revised TransAmerica’s Production Package and D.I.C.E. policies, and provided a similar service to Travelers (through its MGU Encore Entertainment) and for Underwriters at Lloyds through the cover holder and Lloyds Broker, work which included extensive revisions to the Producers and Directors Errors and Omissions forms as well.
From 1987 forward, Mr. Bolson was also retained to investigate claims brought under Production Package policies, including time element claims, and to provide coverage advice and defense to insured’s under Producers and Directors Errors and Omissions coverage, including copyright, trademark, libel and slander. In some instances Mr. Bolson also provided “clearance” services with respect to D.I.C.E. and “reality” programming.
Significant entertainment/insurance related cases include matters which are subject to confidentiality agreements, but include the successful recoupment of investment in “The Crow”, and litigation and claims involving event cancellation, non-appearance of musical acts, cast and other time-element coverages in film and television.
Phi Delta Phi; Order of the Coif. Member, Traynor Honor Society. Recipient, American Jurisprudence Award in Criminal Law. Editor: “Significant Developments in Private International Law,” Comparative Law Yearbook, 1981.
Cases
Truck Insurance Exchange v. Superior Court (Transco Syndicate No. 1) 70 Cal.Rptr.2d 255 (1997); Kransco v. American Empire Surplus Lines Ins. Co. (1997) 63 Cal.Rptr.2d 532; Gurrola v. Great Southwest Ins. Co., 21 Cal.Rptr.2d 749 (1993); Pierce v. Lyman (1991) 3 Cal.Rptr.2d 236; Olson v. Federal Ins. Co., 268 Cal.Rptr.90 (1990).