Tim Burns

Background

About Tim Burns

Tim Burns is a partner at Burns Bair LLP. He combines a deep understanding of insurance law and the insurance industry with a broad understanding of the civil litigation system that allows him to bring creative solutions to high-stakes problems. In 2020, he formed his own firm to work closely with the plaintiffs' bar and to use the experience he gained in thirty years of a corporate insurance trial practice to help victims of corporate and institutional wrongdoing, particularly survivors of sexual abuse, recover insurance. Before founding Burns Bair LLP, Tim was a partner at three of the largest law firms in the country and led the insurance recovery practice groups at two of those law firms. Tim built from scratch one of the world’s top directors’ and officers’ insurance practices. He has co-authored two books on directors’ and officers’ insurance and lectured and written widely on that topic as well as many other areas of insurance law and public policy. For years, Tim taught at directors’ colleges put on by some of the foremost law and business schools in the country, including Stanford’s Directors’ College and the University of Chicago, Stanford and Dartmouth Directors’ Consortium. Since the financial crisis, Tim has led a small group of lawyers who have obtained over $1 billion in settlements and judgments from the insurance industry under many different types of insurance policies, including general liability insurance, directors’ and officers’ insurance, professional liability insurance, fiduciary liability insurance, cyber insurance, property insurance, and crime and fidelity insurance. Tim served on the boards of directors of the American Constitution Society and the Wisconsin Justice Initiative. He is a member of the American Law Institute and is the institutional representative for the American Constitution Society at the European Law Institute. Tim chaired the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee of the American Bar Association.