Partner

Practice Areas

Locations

Admissions

  • New York State Bar
  • Supreme Court of the United States
  • U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York
  • U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit
  • U.S. Court of Appeals, 3rd Circuit

Tim Capowski, Esq.

Partner

The chair of Kahana Feld’s National Appellate Litigation & Consulting Group, Tim is a distinguished AV-Preeminent attorney who has spent three decades at the forefront of the insurance defense bar. He is a leader in his field, a pioneer, on many of the largest and nastiest claims in the history of the toughest legal market in the world. Tim brings his hard-won know-how to bear fighting for carrier and private clients everywhere against the coordinated strategic attacks of the highly-organized plaintiffs’ bar and their wealthy & powerful lobby, shaping approaches to identify, evaluate, monitor, mitigate and defend defendants’ risk in catastrophic property and casualty matters of every kind. To this end, Tim and his group are at the forefront of eliminating improper plaintiff tactics strategically designed to undermine the objectivity of lay jurors, striking at the very foundation of our system of civil justice. They have fought against the injection of misleading, inflammatory, irrelevant, and punitive commentary at trial, against the clever but improper manipulation of internet and news media to poison future and sitting jurors, and have been instrumental in shining a light on extortionate consumer third-party litigation-funding tactics that victimize injured plaintiffs and defendants alike and place an unbearable burden on our already overburdened court system. More recently, they have also led the effort to both expose and defend against what Tim coined the Fraudemic – the largest insurance fraud in U.S. history (and ongoing) – and its disturbing and inevitable correlation with undisclosed and unregulated consumer litigation funding. Underlying all of Tim’s and his group’s efforts, however, are their leadership roles: in (1) encouraging the defense industry to change its obsolete cabined-off ways, and to collaborate in the same incredibly effective manner as the highly-organized plaintiff industry; and (2) identifying methods in our industry and court system to increase efficiency, fairness, justice, and equity for all litigants.

Tim has litigated hundreds of appeals and thousands of motions in state and federal and appellate courts throughout New York and around the country. His lengthy list of representative matters includes innumerable successful appeals and dispositive motions in a wide variety of complex litigation, including catastrophic property & casualty claims, construction defect, product liability, subrogation, professional liability, premises liability, Labor Law, employment law, mass torts, complex torts, toxic torts, insurance coverage, and general commercial litigation.

Tim chairs one of the largest and most talented appellate groups nationwide, and has overseen the evolution of his excess appellate practice specialty into a trusted consultancy (frequently retained at the outset of or during discovery) and appellate trial monitoring hybrid practice that dovetails seamlessly with the nation’s top litigation teams. Widely recognized for their collaborative and efficiency-based approach, Tim and his group have appellate-monitored countless excess risk trials over the past three decades. They have done so seamlessly and in cooperation with the existing defense team, never interfering with, only supplementing, the defense strategy. This is why they are the industry “gold standard” and why the nation’s top litigation groups routinely request their retention.

Tim and his group’s alerts, white papers, and published articles, which help claims professionals, clients, and defense attorneys make more informed strategic decisions, have been prominently featured in national and regional publications and are shared industrywide. Tim and his group also regularly lecture at client and national seminars, webinars, and podcasts on issues of importance to the industry and Bar.

Tim enjoys spending time with his family and friends; following his sons’ high school sports; writing, recording, and performing music; brewing artisanal German & Belgian beers; rooting for the Giants, Bills, Knicks, and Rangers; and being routinely disappointed by his beloved Mets.