John Conlon

Fee Billing Disputes

John is regarded as one of the nation’s leading experts in in auditing legal bills. He has audited legal bills and provided opinions on the reasonableness of billed for fees and costs in all types of cases and legal matters throughout the U.S. and internationally for corporations, governmental and quasi-governmental entities, and individuals. In addition, John has trained attorneys and in-house staffs on how to analyze and audit legal bills.

Possessing a solid background and a recognized expertise in the field of legal ethics, John has long been active in the field of legal ethics.  Additionally, he has served as a longtime member of the Indiana Legal Ethics Hotline and has provided legal counsel and expert opinions in cases involving legal billing disputes, legal ethics and attorney malpractice. Also John is the only attorney legal bill auditor in the U.S. to have served as a Legal Ethics Committee Chair for a state bar association. More importantly, John has qualified in court and provided expert testimony and opinions on legal ethical issues as well as on fee billing issues.

The reason that a legal ethics background is of vital importance in legal bill disputes is that the ABA Rules of Professional Resp. (RPC) and case law interpreting the RPC control all issues related to attorney fee billing.  Thus, because many legal bill review experts lack a recognized expertise in legal ethics or their opinions fail to correctly follow the RPC, their opinions are subject to criticism by appellate courts for failing to acknowledge and follow the RPC. See, e.g., Thompson Inc. v. Insurance Co. of North America, et. al., 11 N.E.3d 982 (Ind. Ct. App. 2014) reh’g denied.

Coverage and/or Bad Faith in Claims Handling in Environmental Insurance Claims

John Conlon’s professional experience includes being Claims Counsel &  Director of the Environmental Claims Department  for Great American Insurance Companies, Cincinnati, OH, and Assistant Vice President and head of the Environmental Claims Department at American States Insurance Company, Indianapolis, IN.  While at both companies John was responsible for coverage decisions on several thousand environmental claims and suits and as well as other types of asbestos and toxic tort claims throughout the U.S. 

Prior to his work in the insurance industry, John was an attorney both in private practice and in-house for energy resource companies. As an attorney, he either represented or supervised the representation of companies in environmental compliance matters with state and federal regulatory agencies and on other matters involving compliance with environmental laws and regulations. 

John was the primary co-founder and the first Chair of the Midwest Environmental Claims Association (MECA) (now known as The National Forum for Environmental & Toxic Tort Issues) and he served as a member of the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the Insurance Environmental Litigation Association (now known as the Complex Insurance Litigation Association). Formerly a member of the Environmental & Emerging Claim Managers Association, John is currently a member of the CLM Environmental & Toxic Tort Committee.

To find out more about John Conlon’s expert witness services, please contact him at jconlon@legalpointsllc.com.