Firm News

American Bar Association’s Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee Honors Jill Berkeley with Lifetime Achievement Award

Jill B. Berkeley, chair of the Insurance Policyholder practice group and partner in the General & Commercial Litigation group, was awarded the first Lifetime Achievement Award of the ABA’s Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section’s Insurance Coverage Litigation Committee (ICLC). The award was created this year in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Committee’s annual meeting and recognizes Jill’s many significant contributions to the mission and objectives of the Committee and the Section.

“I am so happy to learn that Jill has received this special recognition for her body of work and professional success across the years,” said Scott J. Fisher, Managing Partner. “Her commitment to excellence and outstanding ability in the practice of law have made her an inspiration not only to her colleagues here but also to the legal community in general.”

Berkeley has been active in the ICLC for decades. Berkeley was the chair of the ICLC program committee in 1996-1997 and the Chair of the Committee in 2006-2007. She has attended 24 out of the 25 Committee midyear meetings. She has been a speaker at five of the conferences. She has served as a vice-chair of ICLC since 2008. She has chaired seven regional meetings in Chicago sponsored by the Committee. One of her most significant contributions to the Committee and to the work of the Section was her role in developing a mutually beneficial publication arrangement between the International Risk Management Institute (IRMI) and the ABA whereby royalty payments from subscriptions to the CGL Reporter were set aside to fund scholarships for the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section (TIPS). More than 400 scholarships have been awarded, and more than $500,000 in royalties have been paid into the TIPS program from IRMI. More than 70 members of ICLC have served as editors for the CGL Reporter.

Berkeley is consistently ranked in Chambers USA in the top level in Illinois and nationally, Lawdragon 3000, International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers, International Who’s Who of Reinsurance and Insurance Lawyers (2008-2016), Best Lawyers of America (2006-2016), Leading Lawyers of Illinois (Top 100 Attorneys and Top 50 Leading Women Business Lawyers in Illinois), and Illinois Super Lawyers (Top 100 Attorneys and Top 50 Female Attorneys). She was also awarded Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers in the 2017 edition for “Litigation – Insurance.”

In 2012, she was elected a Fellow of the newly formed American College of Coverage and Extracontractual Counsel (ACCEC) in acknowledgment of achieving “the highest standards of creativity, ethics, efficiency and scholarship” in the profession. She has served on its Board of Regents since 2014 and, in 2016, received the Thomas F. Segalla Service Award in recognition of her dedication and service to the ACCEC.

She received the ABA’s Andrew Hecker Memorial Award in 2005. In addition, Business Insurance named Berkeley to its list of the Top 80 Women to Watch in 2006. She was featured in Profiles in Diversity Journal’s annual “Company and Executive Women Worth Watching – 2012” edition. In 2012, she was named Top 25 U.S. Insurance and Reinsurance Attorneys in Expert Guide’s “Guide to the World’s Leading Women in Business Law” and the Chicago Law Bulletin’s 2012 list of “Chicago Women in Law: Women Making an Impact.” She was named in Benchmark Litigation’s 250 Women in Litigation, 2012, 2013 and 2014.