Shawn L. Kelly

Shawn L. Kelly is a Partner at Dentons, based in Short Hills, New Jersey, focusing on Insurance Law. His practice focuses on resolving complex insurance coverage and reinsurance disputes through litigation and arbitration.

Some of his largest cases have involved sorting out insurance and reinsurance issues stemming from major asbestos, construction defect, health hazard, pollution, natural disaster, property, bankruptcy and insolvency actions. He has a long record of success in state and federal courts, including at both the trial and appellate court level. His clients include some of the leading insurance companies in the US, with a growing insurance-based practice in the UK.

His representative experience includes successfully representing a large domestic insurer in a massive asbestos coverage litigation involving more than $1.85 billion in asbestos liabilities, producing a multimillion-dollar judgment for the insurer client; successfully representing ceding insurers and assuming reinsurers in a wide variety of reinsurance disputes, including numerous confidential arbitration proceedings and several matters before the US Court of Appeals; and successfully representing $11 billion in pension funds in the largest insurance rehabilitation proceeding in New Jersey history.

He is ranked Band 1 in New Jersey for Insurance by Chambers USA (2016–present) and is listed in Best Lawyers in America for Commercial Litigation (2007–present), Insurance Law (2007–present) and Litigation – Insurance (2027). He was listed in New Jersey Super Lawyers (2006–2017) and recognised as a leading insurance and reinsurance lawyer in The International Who’s Who of Insurance and Reinsurance Lawyers (2013, 2016).

He has co-authored articles on New Jersey’s Natural Resource Damages Initiative published in the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel Quarterly (2006), and has spoken on topics including social unrest claims and the pandemic’s impact on insurance claims, reinsurance dispute developments in the US, selective litigation developments in New Jersey and New York, and developments in asbestos, pollution and health hazards litigation.

His practice areas include alternative dispute resolution, appellate advocacy, dispute risk management, insurance and reinsurance, insurance litigation and arbitration, insurance-related insolvencies, litigation and dispute resolution, and reinsurance. He is a member of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel and the Section of Tort and Insurance Practice of the American Bar Association. He holds a JD from Georgetown University Law Center (1978) and an AB in Political Science from Duke University (1974).