For Immediate Release
August 25, 1999

Noted Appellate Attorney Joins Shernoff, Bidart, Darras & Dillon

Jeffrey Isaac Ehrlich, an appellate specialist certified by the California Bar’s Committee on Legal Specialization, has joined the Claremont office of Shernoff, Bidart, Darras & Dillon.

Ehrlich, 40, is well-known for successfully arguing UNUM Life Insurance Co. v. Ward, 119S. Ct. 1380 in the United States Supreme Court this year on behalf of John Ward, a California man trying to collect disability benefits from an insurance company. In a case closely watched by the insurance industry, a unanimous Court held in April that the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, ERISA, did not bar the application of a California rule that forbids insurance companies from denying untimely filed benefit claims unless the company can show that the late filing caused it to sustain “actual prejudice.” The decision means that the 80 million people who obtain insurance through their employers are protected by state insurance laws.

Ehrlich’s practice emphasizes civil appellate work, writs, and related proceedings involving ERISA and insurance litigation. Before joining Shernoff, Bidart, Darras & Dillon, a nationally-known consumer insurance bad faith law firm, Ehrlich maintained an office in the Washington, D.C. area.

In addition to arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court, Ehrlich has argued appeals throughout California in the last 15 years, and before seven of the 12 Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal.

Before opening his office in Washington, D.C., Ehrlich was an appellate attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in Washington, D.C.

A 1983 cum laude graduate of the Harvard Law School,Ehrlich will head the firm’s appellate practice group.