Richard Shore has 30 years of experience helping clients overcome bet-the-company problems.

Richard has helped Fortune 500 and other clients successfully resolve billions of dollars in complex, multi-party business disputes and legal claims, with a focus on representing policyholders in insurance coverage disputes, particularly where those disputes involve the intersection of mass-tort, bankruptcy, and insurance. He has advised clients facing significant liabilities on global strategies for dealing with these problems. His work involves strategic advice, counseling, alternative dispute resolution, complex multi-party settlement negotiations, litigation management, and appellate matters.

Richard has successfully led large litigation and transactional teams, including coordinating among multiple law and consulting firms with varying expertise on large and complex matters. He currently is leading efforts on behalf of opioid claimants to assess the nature and extent of the opioid industry’s insurance coverage available to address claims by governmental entities, individuals, and others harmed by the opioid crisis.

Richard has developed an engaging dispute settlement seminar that draws on Hollywood films and New Yorker cartoons to illustrate successful negotiating techniques. He has been quoted on insurance matters by media outlets including USA TODAY, CNNMoney.com, and Business Insurance magazine. He has written articles on insurance and ADR issues that have appeared in a variety of print and electronic publications, including Forbes.com.

Richard is a member of the firm’s Executive Committee.

• Retained as settlement counsel for Fortune 500 electric power company to resolve insurance claims for multi-billion-dollar coal-ash environmental liabilities.
• Advising businesses, non-profits, and government officials on business interruption coverage for coronavirus losses.
• Leading claimants’ efforts to evaluate opioid defendants’ insurance coverage for harms caused by national opioid crisis.
• Secured tens of millions of dollars in settlements of client’s claims against insurers for alleged environmental liabilities.
• Negotiated largest settlement ever against state insurance guaranty fund.
• Secured hundreds of millions of dollars in disputed insurance proceeds for each of several asbestos insulation contracting companies.
• Prevailed in serial appeals of federal district court rulings in a legal fee dispute.
• Secured substantial six-figure settlement for pro bono client in outpatient drug treatment program whose case worker stole his assets and personal property and left him penniless.

• 1987–1988 — Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
  • Monbusho Fellow
• 1987 — J.D., Columbia University Law School
  • Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar
• 1984 — B.A. (economics), University of Maryland
  • Phi Beta Kappa (scholastic)
  • Omicron Delta Kappa (leadership)

• District of Columbia
• New York
• Cherokee Nation
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second, Fourth and Ninth Circuits
• U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
• U.S. District Court for the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York

• Harvard Law School Leadership in Law Firms Program, September 2022
• Best Lawyers in America
• Guide to the World’s Leading Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers, Legal Media Group/EuroMoney
• Washington, DC Super Lawyer
• Recognized by two bankruptcy judges for exceptional service to clients and courts in resolving chapter 11 reorganization cases.
• Appointed by Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to ReOpen DC Advisory Group, formed in response to the coronavirus pandemic to develop recommendations on reopening the District safely and sustainably through a plan based on science and tailored to the needs of the community.
• Board Member, American Friends of Hebrew University, Mid-Atlantic Region
• Outside General Counsel, Swann Foundation for Music Education
• Board Member, Eruv Committee for Bethesda, Maryland
• Former Director, Reneo Consulting LLC (strategic consulting firm)
• Former Board Member, The China Fund, Inc.
• Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll, High Honors (DC Courts; DC Bar; DC Access to Justice Commission)