Practice Areas:
Commercial Litigation
Insurance and Reinsurance

Suzanne Cocco Midlige is a Founding Partner of Coughlin Duffy LLP where she serves as the Practice Group Leader for the Insurance and Reinsurance Services Group. Ms. Midlige’s practice focuses on the representation of domestic and international insurers and reinsurers in litigated and non-litigated matters. Ms. Midlige has extensive experience representing multi-national companies involved in transnational disputes. She also concentrates on the representation of companies embroiled in commercial and antitrust disputes. In 1992, Ms. Midlige joined the law firm of McElroy Deutsch & Mulvaney LLP where she served as a Practice Group Administrator for the Insurance Services Group. She was made a partner in 1999 and remained at that firm from 1992 until she resigned in March 2004 to start the firm of Coughlin Duffy LLP. Ms. Midlige served as judicial clerk to the Honorable William G. Bassler, Judge of the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey for the 1991-1992 Term.

Ms. Midlige has extensive experience representing the interests of insurers and reinsurers in disputes relating to financial institutions, asbestos, pollution, and health hazards. Ms. Midlige recently acted for multinational reinsurers in a series of corporate malfeasance claims and failed tax strategy claims and is currently acting as coordinating counsel for a multinational reinsurer in relation to subprime and credit exposures.  Ms. Midlige has significant experience with asbestos coverage disputes, including the area of asbestos bankruptcy litigation. Recent significant cases also include acting as counsel to fifty multinational insurers in a complex insurance and antitrust dispute involving US and Australian asbestos claims. Ms. Midlige works closely with insurers in relation to the development and implementation of models to allocate losses across complex insurance programs, and in evaluating future loss projections and developing burn rate analyses.

Significant cases include a successful appeal argued before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New Hampshire Insurance Company v. Sphere Drake Insurance Limited, et al. Ms. Midlige also successfully argued an appeal before Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Jame Fine Chemicals, Inc. v. Hi-Tech Pharmacal Co., Inc. v. MedPointe, Inc.

Ms. Midlige was named as a leading attorney by the Guide to the World's Leading Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers in 2004, 2006 and 2008. She was selected as a 2006, 2007, and 2009 New Jersey Super Lawyer.

In 2008, Ms. Midlige was named a Fellow in the Litigation Counsel of America.  Ms. Midlige is also a member of the Professional Liability Underwriting Society (PLUS), ARIAS, and the New Jersey, International and American Bar Associations where she was recently appointed as Co-Chair of the Computer Technology Subcommittee of the Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee of the Section of Litigation.

In 2005, Ms. Midlige was selected as a Leader Among Women and Minorities in New Jersey by the New Jersey Law Journal. She is a founding member of the firm's Women's Initiative Group and is leading her firm's partnership with the New Jersey Council on Gender Parity in Labor and Education.

Education:

Seton Hall University (JD, 1991)

Muhlenberg College (BA, 1984)

Professional Admissions:

State of New Jersey (1991)
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1991)

United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (1991)
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (2001)

Publications and Presentations:

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and Coats, Amanda K. (2010) “Navigating the Wave of Water Contamination Claims:  Analysis of  City of New York v. Amerada Hess Corp. and Its Implications for Other Water Contamination Claims,” Environmental Claims Journal, 22: 1, 17-26

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10406020903543269

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, Re, Robert J., and Coats, Amanda K. (2010), “Neue Welle von Produkthaftpflichtklagen  wegen ‘Chinese Drywall’ in den USA?,” PHi, Nr. 1/2010

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, Re, Robert J., and Coats, Amanda K.,  presentation, “Navigating a New Wave of Product Liability Claims,” Munich, Germany, 2009

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and Hoffman, William J., “US Supreme Court and Democrat Lawmakers Breath New Life Into Product Liability Claims,” Financier Worldwide Magazine, June 2009

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and Clements, Sally A., presentation,  “Implication of Aggregation in Insurance and Reinsurance Disputes,” June 2009

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, Hoffman, William J., and Carrer, Michael E., presentation, “Consider Yourself Warned! Federal Preemption of State Prescription Drug Claims and its Potential Impact on Product Liability Claims and Insurance,” Munich, Germany, 2008

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, “Subprime, Auction Rate Securities and Credit Crisis: Update & Emerging Issues,” New York, New York,  2008

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, White Paper, “Auction Rate Securities Overview & Emerging Issues,” July, 2008

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and Hoffman, William J., presentation, “Cyber Liability:  Understanding Technology Losses in an Age of E-Commerce,”  Munich, Germany, 2007

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and Coughlin, Kevin T., presentation,  “U.S. Asbestos Litigation Past, Present & Future,” Munich, Germany, 2007

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco, presentation, “Settling Asbestos and Environmental Insurance Claims,” New Jersey Institute for Continuing Legal Education, March  2007

Midlige, Suzanne Cocco and DeFilippis Danielle M., “Sharing a Common Interest? An Overview of Claims of Privilege and the Cedent/Reinsurer Relationship Work-Product Doctrines,” Munich, Germany, 2005

Contact:
P.O. Box 1917
350 Mount Kemble Avenue
Morristown, NJ 07962-1917

Direct Dial: (973) 631-6006
Facsimile: (973) 267-6442

E-mail:
smidlige@coughlinduffy.com