Anthony R. Zelle

Since 1986, Tony Zelle has developed a complex litigation practice, primarily in the representation of national and international insurance company clients. He has a wide range of experience litigating insurance coverage issues involving property, liability and specialty lines. He currently devotes a significant part of his practice to the defense of insurance companies against bad faith and other extra-contractual claims. Recently, he has represented insurers in coverage and bad faith claims arising out of two of the most publicized issues in Boston: the Archdiocese of Boston's sex abuse scandal and the "Big Dig."

Over the past five years, Tony has also spent a substantial amount of time handling business litigation matters and has had significant success in securities litigation cases. He won an $8.6 million jury verdict against Merrill Lynch and a $12.5 million arbitration award against UBS PaineWebber.

After he was graduated from Boston College Law School, Tony began practicing with Robins Zelle Larson & Kaplan, where he became involved in the then nascent environmental coverage and toxic torts arenas. As novel insurance coverage issues were raised and the litigation became increasingly more complicated, Tony had the opportunity to assist the insurance defense bar in shaping the law. He was personally involved in many of the first cases addressing insurance coverage for environmental contamination and had the opportunity to establish the law through appeals he handled in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia.

In addition to the complex insurance coverage litigation, in his formative first decade of practice, Tony gained substantial trial experience representing plaintiffs in subrogation matters and representing defendants in product liability, premises liability and general negligence claims. Since establishing himself as an effective trial lawyer, Tony has tried increasingly difficult cases involving questions of insurance coverage, bad faith and fraud. He has successfully prosecuted fraud claims in state court brought against two of New York's largest brokerage firms and in federal court he tried a fraud case against one of the largest law firms in central Massachusetts. Representing the plaintiffs in these matters has provided Tony with a distinct advantage in his primary area of practice: defending his insurance clients against bad faith and other extra-contractual claims.

Since 2001, Tony has served as the Chair of the Defense Research Institute's Bad Faith and Extra-Contractual Claim Committee. In that role, he has developed and served on the faculty of a number of programs presented by the DRI and he recently compiled and edited the DRI's Compendium of Insurance Bad Faith. For the past five years, Tony has also served on the faculty of the National Forum for Property Loss Professionals, which presents an exclusive workshop for individuals with substantial experience handling property insurance claims. He has been recognized as a "Super Lawyer" by Boston Magazine and his abilities as a litigator have been repeatedly recognized in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly.

Tony is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court, the First, Second and Third Circuit Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, the Federal District Courts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and California, the State Bars of Massachusetts and Minnesota. He has handled cases as pro hac vice counsel in more than twenty jurisdictions throughout the United States.

tzelle@zelmcd.com