Frank N. Darras

DarrasLaw

Ontario

Disability insurance

Darras, who founded DarrasLaw to specialize in clients whose disability insurers have denied them coverage, foresees a surge in cases as a follow-on to the covid-19 pandemic.

Speaking in early April, he said, "A couple of doctors today sent me information about post-covid effects on the heart. Afflicted individuals could qualify for short-term or long-term disability coverage, but I anticipate denials. We'll be ready."

Darras was looking at a full football scholarship in his early days when he lost part of a finger in a forklift chain accident, ending his plans to play wide receiver.

"Your dreams can change in an instant," he said. "So you change your perspective."

In the 1970s he worked as a paramedic and as a medical equipment salesman.

"I thought of making medicine my calling, then I changed course for law school."

After learning trial techniques working on disability-related cases as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, Darras hired on at the firm then known as Shernoff & Levine, where he attained name partner status after establishing himself as the disability expert. But at Shernoff Bidart Darras & Echeverria, "As the third person on the letterhead, it was sometimes hard for out-of-state people to find me," Darras said in a 2010 Daily Journal interview. "I wanted to have a national practice, and I wanted to brand it DarrasLaw."

He maintains offices in Ontario and said he and his colleagues look at as many as 2,500 denials each month and maintain a workload of about 650 clients. His business model is to investigate cases thoroughly, file claims and then settle.

"I litigate here or in London against Lloyd's," the insurance syndicate giant. "It's been years since I went to trial."

He said he has recovered nearly $1 billion for clients for wrongfully denied insurance benefits since he opened in 2010. "Most lawyers are not going to get involved with a $20,000 case because they have to get filed in federal court, and who is going to spend $100,000 to get $20,000? I do, I have, and I will," Darras said on his website. "I have a tremendous war chest. That's a real strong message to the industry."

He also handles cases for entertainers, athletes and other high-profile professionals, whom he declined to name.

"With a national practice, I see the country in real time," he said. "If a carrier is going to start a new system of denials, they usually do it in a smaller venue in a poor state in the South. I'm ready to attack, to beat them down."

He's been through the SARS and mad cow disease epidemics.

"I have the largest practice of its kind in the country," Darras said. "It's a privilege to be able to help people."

--John Roemer