Fuller, Kenneth D.

Nancy Portney is a member of Nelson Levine de Luca & Hamilton's Insurance Coverage Group.  With more than 20 years of sophisticated coverage experience, Ms. Portney concentrates her practice on complex coverage litigation as well as advising insurers in evaluating a wide range of complex primary and excess third-party liability claims, including long tail and toxic tort claims, professional liability claims, advertising injury claims, construction defect claims and emerging issues such as climate change. She has litigated coverage disputes in numerous jurisdictions, and her experience includes extensive trial and appellate court briefing, argument and motion practice in a wide variety of federal and state courts. 

Prior to joining NLdH, Ms. Portney spent nearly a decade advising and representing numerous national and international insurers in the global insurance practice of an Am Law 100 law firm.  Ms. Portney brings a unique insight to advising the insurers that she now represents, given that early in her legal career she counseled corporate policyholders in a broad range of coverage disputes. She also has experience litigating commercial tort disputes and products liability actions, and evaluating individual settlement claims in a global pharmaceutical class action.

While attending law school, Ms. Portney served as Executive Editor for the Georgetown Journal of Legal Ethics.  Following law school, she served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Abraham J. Gafni in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.

Ms. Portney has performed pro bono work with the Philadelphia Support Center for Child Advocates and the Montgomery Child Advocacy Project.  She also devotes time to several community organizations, and she was elected and serves as a local Judge of Elections during primary and general elections.

Representative Experience:

• Obtained summary judgment for an insurer in a coverage action, in which the underlying litigation was once described as potentially becoming one of the largest anti-trust cases ever in the United States.
• Served as counsel in successfully obtaining affirmance of summary judgment in excess insurer client’s favor, in the first known appellate decision to examine and enforce claims-made requirements in a follow-form excess policy.
• Obtained summary judgment for an insurer in a multi-million dollar exposure coverage case, in which the claimant sought coverage for water and mold damage to a town hall.
• Obtained dismissal against one competing claimant seeking asbestos bodily injury coverage, eliminating excess insurer client’s potential exposure.