PROFESSIONALS

Sara M. Thorpe

Of Counsel
blank image Sara M. Thorpe
101 Montgomery Street
Suite 2300
San Francisco, CA 94104, US

T: 415.745.3772 F: 415.745.3771
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Biography
BIOGRAPHY
Sara has more than 30 years of experience advising, litigating, and trying lawsuits for domestic and London-based insurers in a wide range of complex, high-stakes issues, including in the context of declaratory relief, breach of contract, “Buss” reimbursement, “cumis” arbitration, insurance fraud, rescission, alleged “bad faith,” and alleged “unfair business practices.”

Her insurance coverage experience includes evaluating and addressing disputes with policyholders and insurers in many areas, including:
 
  • Environmental liabilities
  • Asbestos and other toxic torts
  • Primary and excess exhaustion and priority
  • Professional liability
  • First-party property
 
In addition, Sara provides insurance company claims training and assists with policy drafting. She regularly speaks and writes for national insurance-related trade organizations.
Let's look at the big picture and options, and then let's solve your problem.

Memberships

  • American College of Coverage Counsel 
  • Defense Research Institute 
  • Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation, Western Division Board

Awards & Rankings

  • The Best Lawyers in America® (Insurance Law and Litigation - Insurance), Best Lawyers®, 2021 – 2024
  • Northern California Super Lawyers® (Insurance Coverage), 2004 – 2023
  • The Best Lawyers in America® (Insurance Law), Best Lawyers®, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023
  • Business Edition of Women in the Law, Best Lawyers®, 2022
  • Chambers USA, Insurance: Insurer (2011-2023)
  • 5-Star Insurance Lawyer, Insurance Business America, 2021

Additional lifetime recognition includes:
 
  • Top Rated Lawyer-AV®, Martindale-Hubbell
  • Forever Influential Honor Roll, San Francisco Business Times
  • Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business, San Francisco Business Times

Before Nicolaides

Sara was a partner for 20 years at a large national law firm and managed the 140 lawyers in the San Francisco office of that firm from 2003-2008. Before that, she worked at a smaller litigation firm in Boise, Idaho. Sara started her legal career clerking for former U.S. District Court Judge Harold Ryan in Boise and became interested in practicing law after working at Willie Brown’s law office in San Francisco, California.

Outside Nicolaides

Sara was, for many years, on the steering committee for the Insurance Law Group of the Defense Research Institute (DRI) and has been a speaker, author, and moderator in DRI’s insurance-related programs. She is a member of and speaker at the American College of Coverage Counsel, an organization of insurer and policyholder lawyers. In 2022, Sara joined the Board (Western Division) for the Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation.
 
Active in her broader community, Sara is a long-time supporter of the Breast Cancer Fund. She climbed Mt. Shasta with “Climb Against the Odds” in 2004 and again in 2010 with her daughter to raise awareness and funds for the organization’s advocacy efforts to prevent cancer. For over six years, Sara served on the board of First Graduate, which tutors and mentors students to be the first in their families to graduate from college. She served as head of the Development Committee and chair of their Governance Committee. She currently volunteers with Habitat for Humanity and with political action organizations.
EXPERIENCE
  • Following discovery, obtained summary judgment against insured for failure to substantiate “direct physical loss of or damage to” under first-party business interruption policy coverage.
  • Obtained summary judgment in favor of insurer regarding application of “unavailability exception” in environmental liability coverage case under Alabama law. 

  • Obtained summary judgment against policyholder for failure to substantiate first party fire loss.

  • Successfully resolved dispute over life insurance policy proceeds involving issues of misrepresentation in the application and issues over rightful beneficiary.

  • Secured trial-court decision favoring excess London and domestic insurers in phased asbestos coverage trial on basis that policyholder failed to prove horizontal exhaustion of all applicable primary insurance policies.
  • Secured trial decision in favor of excess insurer in asbestos coverage lawsuit concerning interpretation of unique "occurrence" language and self-insured retention and deductible requirements.
  • Obtained defense decision at trial for primary insurer that it had no duty to defend or indemnify, and did not breach its contract or act in bad faith, in denying coverage for underlying environmental contamination claims.
  • Obtained trial decision that insurance company was entitled to recover defense costs paid under reservation of rights pursuant to California Supreme Court's Buss decision.
  • Won jury verdict on insurer's cross-claim against insured in bad faith litigation, that insured fraudulently pursued fire loss and obtained criminal restitution award.
  • Won jury verdict for excess insurers finding they had no obligation to pay for environmental contamination arising from dry cleaners' operations.
  • Obtained reversal of trial court decision that insurer was required to pay defense in addition to liability limits of uniquely-worded excess policy, following a re-trial resulting from policyholder's failure to disclose it had information about additional umbrella insurance.
  • Obtained affirmance of summary judgment for insurer based on policy exclusion for the insured's dishonest acts of acts for profit, gain, or advantage.
  • Obtained dismissal of coverage action, in which insured sought defense and indemnity for its settlement, on grounds that there was no duty to defend the underlying contractual dispute, which insured tried to characterize as copyright-infringement suit.
NEWS & INSIGHTS

ADDITIONAL SPEAKING & WRITING

  • Presenter, Annual Year in Review of Prior Year’s Insurance Decisions for the Bar Association of San Francisco (January 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018)
  • Co-Author, "Lost Horizons: Montrose, Braun, and the Possible Disappearance of 'Horizontal Exhaustion' in California," International Association of Claim Professionals' Declarations 2020-2021 Year in Review (October 2021) 
  • Panelist and Co-author, ACCC presentation on “Multiple Insureds, Insufficient Limits” (July 2021)
  • Co-Presenter, "New Strategies for the New Year" (January 2017)
  • Co-author, New Appleman on Insurance Law Library Edition, Vol. 12, Ch. 150, “Initiation of Litigation” (2014)
  • Co-chair and Moderator, DRI Annual Insurance Coverage Symposium, New York (December 2014)
  • Panelist, "Cyber-Insurance: Insurance Coverage for Computer Related Losses and Liabilities," Bar Association of San Francisco’s Continued Legal Education, San Francisco (May 2014)
  • Panelist, American Bar Association’s Women in Insurance workshop on Bad faith insurance issues (October 2013)
  • Co-speaker, DRI Bad Faith and Extra-Contractual Claims Symposium, with State Farm in-house counsel, on updated strategies to defeat bad faith litigation (June 2013) 
  • Instructor, Hastings School of Law, San Francisco, California, on Buss topics and those relating to definition of “occurrence” (2012 and 2010)
  • Panelist, American Bar Association's TIPS on evolving Buss issues for insurer reimbursement actions (March 2011, 2009, 2007)
  • Author on evolving issues in Buss insurer reimbursement actions American Bar Association's TIPs (2011, 2009, 2007)
  • The Bad Faith Set-Up – Seeing and Avoiding the Traps at DRI Bad Faith and Extra-Contractual Claims Symposium (June 2009)
  • Learning to Live with Independent Counsel, co-authored with Leslie Crary, DRI ICCI Conference (April 2008) 
  • Construction Coverage Conundrums: When Is it A 'Completed Operation', DRI ICCI Conference (May 2006) 
  • The Pollution Exclusion Moves Indoors: Does it Preclude Coverage for Injury Caused by Carbon Monoxide?, For the Defense, DRI (May 2003)
  • Attack of the ‘Killer Mold’: Defending Against the Bodily Injury Claim and Identifying Insurance Coverage Issues, West Coast Casualty’s Annual Convention, Anaheim, California (May 2002)