Biography

David Killalea is a partner in the Litigation Division in the Washington, D.C., office.  His diverse practice spans all aspects of insurance recovery, including litigation, complex multiparty negotiations and strategic counseling, as well as other commercial litigation.

Mr. Killalea represents companies large and small in securing insurance coverage for their liabilities. Such liabilities arrive from claims ranging from mass torts, shareholder derivative suits and securities class actions, environmental property damage and bodily injury, advertising injury, False Claims Act, FCPA, and more.  His insurance recovery efforts have included litigation in state and federal trial and appellate courts, mediations, arbitrations, and complex multiparty negotiations.

Mr. Killalea has represented debtor companies and corporate parents of debtors in several of the most hotly contested asbestos-related bankruptcy cases in the country.  He has successfully litigated complex disputes at the intersection of insurance and bankruptcy law and has secured hundreds of millions of dollars in coverage for bankruptcy debtors.

Mr. Killalea is also an accomplished litigator outside the insurance recovery area, having successfully litigated consumer class action, breach of contract, employment, white collar criminal, and other cases during the course of his career.

Before joining Manatt, Mr. Killalea was a founding partner at Gilbert, LLP.

Some of Mr. Killalea’s recent engagements include:

• Recovering hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance for a large pharmaceutical company arising from asbestos-related and other products liability claims through litigation in federal and state courts, arbitration proceedings and insurer insolvency proceedings, and through complex, multiparty negotiations.
• Representing several manufacturing companies in litigation against dozens of insurers to recover hundreds of millions of dollars of losses incurred in connection with toxic tort claims arising from alleged environmental contamination, asbestos, silica and other products liability claims. 
• Representing companies faced with securities and other litigation in recovering insurance proceeds from their insurers under D&O and other policies. 
• Winning a landmark ruling in an asbestos-related bankruptcy holding that insurers have limited standing to participate in their policyholder’s bankruptcy and object to the policyholder’s bankruptcy plan.  
• Assisting bankruptcy debtors, through negotiation and litigation, in transferring insurance assets to the benefit of creditors, over insurers’ objections, so the debtors can emerge successfully from bankruptcy. 
• Serving as lead insurance litigation counsel for an asbestos defendant, securing an approximately $450 million settlement from a single insurer after extensive state and federal court litigation, bankruptcy litigation, arbitration, mediation, and unmediated negotiations involving numerous parties. 
• Serving as lead insurance litigation counsel for a post-bankruptcy trust, securing hundreds of millions of dollars from a single insurer.