James S. Daniel

James's insurance defense practice includes insurance coverage disputes and bad faith litigation, general liability defense, wrongful death and catastrophic injury actions, automotive negligence, premises liability, negligent security, and product liability. He also represents businesses and individual clients in disputes arising from contractual relationships and torts.

For his first ten years as an attorney, James represented carriers and insurance companies as well as individual employers for workers’ compensation defense. He became a partner at an Oklahoma City insurance defense law firm where he also handled Medicare Qui Tam, and securities fraud defense.
Prior to joining GRSM, he worked for a large civil defense firm in Tulsa and was Senior Litigation Counsel to a midstream pipeline inspection and performance testing company providing services to the energy and municipal water industries. There, he managed outside counsel on cases pertaining to personal injury, wrongful death actions, and workers’ compensation claims. His practice involved defending breach of contract matters, employment agreements, and misuse of confidential information. James defended claims and demands made by employees/employer in arbitration through the American Arbitration Association (AAA) and has defended over 60 claims involving the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), eventually settling all of the claims outstanding after protracted litigation.

James has experience handling construction and engineering defect claims, negligence matters, insurance defense, and has appeared before the Oklahoma Workers’ Compensation Appellate Panel on behalf of insurers and insureds. His prior (non-law) experience also includes managing a family farm in Webster Parish, Louisiana, where he ranched registered Black Angus cattle, planted and improved 2,500 pecan trees and approximately 17,000 pine trees for production and harvesting, was a Corrections Officer at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, LA, and has more recently appeared as an extra in Martin Scorcese’s epic motion picture, Killers of the Flower Moon.

James received his Juris Doctor from the University of Tulsa College of Law in 1999 and Bachelor of Arts in American History from Louisiana State University in 1992.