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Dean C. Burnick
Partner

Dean C. Burnick brings to Greenan, Peffer, Sallander & Lally LLP a vast amount of business and insurance-related experience. As a member of the firm's Litigation Department, Dean handles cases in both state and federal courts primarily at the trial level.

Recruited in 1987 directly from the Executive Editorial Board of the Washington University Law Quarterly, Dean began practicing in Chicago by serving as national coordinating counsel for prominent local and foreign insurers on large exposure, high profile professional liability cases. After relocating to California in 1990, Dean broadened his practice to include commercial and employment disputes, and expanded his insurance coverage and litigation practice to focus on all forms of commercial insurance, and life, health & disability insurance.

Dean has also worked closely with two former California Insurance Commissioners on a wide variety of regulatory matters involving the sale of insurance products, promoting industry-based legislative initiatives, implementing new insurance programs and executive compensation plans, regulatory and licensing for insurers and insurance-related organizations, responding to administrative inquiries, and advising online insurance concerns.

Over the years, Dean has achieved considerable success representing clients in disputes involving California’s Unfair Competition Act, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, interference with economic advantage, fraud, defamation, discrimination, workplace torts, and the privacy-related offenses. He has also represented clients in other business and employment related disputes, including actions seeking accounting, contract rescission and reformation, and to enforce free-speech rights under California’s anti-SLAPP Statute.

EDUCATION & DEGREES:

* Juris Doctorate , Washington University School of Law in St. Louis , 1987

     * Washington University Law Quarterly

          * Executive Editor – 1986-87

          * Staff Member – 1985-86

* B.A. Economics, Drew University , Madison N.J., 1983

LICENSING:

* California since 1990;

* Illinois since 1987.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

Dean is a member of the Contra Costa County Bar Association; State Bar of California Labor and Employment Law, and Commercial Litigation sections; Defense Research Institute where he is on the Insurance Coverage, and Disability Life & Health Committees; Commonwealth Club of California where he is on the Steering Committee for the Business and Leadership Members Forum. Dean also sat on the Advisory Committee for the initial launch of John F. Kennedy School of Law’s Paralegal Certification Program.

PUBLICATIONS:

* “Independent Counsel and Its Impact on the Insurer’s Defense Duty” published in the Defense Research Institute’s Duty of Defense Compendium (1st Ed. 2005).

* Contributing author to Insurance Bad Faith: A Compendium of State Law published by the Defense Research Institute in 2006, now in its Second Edition.

* Editor and author of multiple chapters in the Defense Research Institute’s Uninsured Motorist and Underinsured Motorist Coverage: A Compendium of State Law (1st Ed. 2007).

* Author of multiple chapters in Recovery of Fees in Declaratory Relief Actions scheduled for publication by the Defense Research Institute in 2009.

E-mail: dburnick@gpsllp.com

Practice Areas:

Insurance Coverage & Litigation

Employment Advice & Litigation

Business & Transactional

Real Estate & Homebuilder Litigation

Litigation