Linda D. Kornfeld

When insurance companies don't pay claims, Kornfeld pushes back. For client Pennsylvania State University, still feeling the effects of the Jerry Sandusky serial child molestation scandal, she is preparing for an October trial against the school's longtime insurance carrier, Pennsylvania Manufacturers' Association Insurance Co., over its refusal to pay for the $90 million-plus Penn State spent to settle victim claims.

"Penn State had a relationship with this insurer for 50 years," Kornfeld said. "When Penn State said, 'Please assist us,' the company responded by filing a lawsuit" in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for a declaratory judgment limiting its liability. "I'd say that's an unfortunate event." Penn State countersued for bad faith.

Kornfeld has spent the past two years taking and defending depositions of witnesses at all levels of the scandal, including former football coaches, football team staffers, the criminal defendants, a key witness to the abuse and members of the school's board of trustees. "It's important to really roll your sleeves up and dig deep into the policy language," she said. "Sometimes you look at the case law and see that a superficial review will not lead to the correct outcome."

The victim litigation is ongoing and so too is Kornfeld's work on the case. She has led the effort to successfully overcome multiple discovery disputes, including fending off the insurance company's bid to take substantial discovery from Louis Freeh, a former FBI director retained by the board of trustees as special investigative counsel to probe the school's role in Sandusky's crimes. "He was hired in a privileged context and much of his work is protected by the attorney-client privilege," Kornfeld said.

Meanwhile, Kornfeld represents Santa Barbara Cottage Health System and Hospital in the first insurance recovery lawsuit filed nationwide regarding coverage under a data breach specific policy for a data breach event. Cottage said that protected health information involving about 32,500 confidential medical records was exposed in late 2013. "The world of cybersecurity is evolving from a liability and risk perspective," Kornfeld said. In July 2015 she prevailed on a motion to dismiss Columbia's suit on jurisdictional grounds; the matter is in mediation.

? John Roemer