Meet Our Team
Laurie Julien
Partner
Laurie Julien is a partner at Berkes Crane Santana & Spangler LLP. She is an experienced insurance coverage and bad faith defense attorney, successfully guiding, advising and protecting the interests of insurance companies throughout the United States. She represents admitted and surplus lines insurers issuing domestic and foreign commercial general liability policies, excess and umbrella policies, commercial and personal automobile policies, long term care policies, directors’ and officers’ and entity liability policies, homeowners’ policies and manufacturers’ policies.
Ms. Julien handles a broad range of cases, from two-party coverage/declaratory relief and bad faith disputes to high exposure, multi-site, multi-party long-tail claims involving hazardous waste, environmental liabilities, earth movement and construction defects. She also litigates and provides advice in cases involving underwriting issues, fraud, misrepresentation and concealment, subrogation, contribution, personal injury, advertising injury, business interruption and miscellaneous torts. Ms. Julien is currently representing insurers in declaratory relief and bad faith actions brought by business owners for economic losses resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic and related state and local government “stay-at-home” orders, including the decision in Boxed Foods Company, LLC v. California Capital Insurance Company, 497 F.Supp.3d 516 (N.D. Cal. 2020), as amended (Oct. 27, 2020).
Ms. Julien is a skilled litigator, frequently prevailing on motion to dismiss, demurrer or summary judgment in both first-party and third-party actions. She has tried several cases and handled and argued various appeals, including the notable case of Richard T. Ray v. Valley Forge Insurance Company, 77 Cal.App.4th 1039 (1999), which established the California law that general liability insurers have no duty to defend allegations of providing poor advice.
Ms. Julien received her B.A. in Psychology from University of California at Los Angeles, cum laude, and her J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. Ms. Julien is admitted to practice in the California state courts, United States District Courts for the Central, Southern, Northern and Eastern Districts of California and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
