Laura Ryan is Partner in the San Francisco office of GRSM and a member of the Insurance, Professional Liability Defense and Product Liability practice groups.

Laura’s insurance practice focuses on advising insurers on complex coverage issues under professional liability, commercial general liability, and employment practices liability insurance. She also represents insurers in declaratory relief and bad faith litigation. Laura has authored hundreds of coverage opinions in connection with construction defect, environmental, wrongful termination and other professional liability matters. As a member of the Professional Liability Defense Group, Laura’s practice focuses on litigation, which includes defending insurance agencies and individual brokers in a variety of legal claims including breach of contract, negligence, bad faith and other broker errors and omissions related matters.  As a member of the Tort and Product Liability Practice Group, Laura has extensive litigation experience having handled all aspects of litigation for the largest auto manufacturer in the U.S. in product liability and consumer/economic litigation claims, including fraud claims, involving all aspects of pretrial motions, discovery preparation, depositions, electronic discovery, mediations, expert witness discovery and trial preparations.

Prior to entering private practice, Laura served as a law clerk for the California Supreme Court and as a research attorney for the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In addition, she was a litigation associate at a Boston-based law firm, where she gained substantial experience in product liability, construction defect and insurance law and second-chaired several trials.

Admissions

  • California
  • Massachusetts
  • U.S. District Court, Northern, Eastern, Central and Southern Districts of California
  • United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit and Ninth Circuit

Memberships

  • State Bar of Massachusetts
  • State Bar of California

Community Involvement

  • Glide Memorial Church Kitchen
  • Race for the Cure
  • First Graduate

Education

  • J.D., cum laude, University of San Francisco School of Law
    • Two American Jurisprudence Awards in Legal Research and Writing
    • Senior Member, Law Review
  • B.A., University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Languages

  • Spanish