Preface and acknowledgments.

• Author: Pryor, Ellen Smith

This guide is the final product of a project, begun in 1993, to examine in depth the professional responsibilities of insurance defense lawyers. The brainchild of David J. Beck, who was President of the International Association of Defense Counsel in 1991-92, the project brought law professors who specialize in insurance law and professional responsibility together with leading lawyers, all of whom were experienced in insurer-retained defenses of policyholders. Many of the lawyers were published authors in their own right.

Since its inception, the project has been an academic undertaking in the truest sense. As between an intellectual free-for-all and a defined project with a deadline for completion, it has resembled the former much more than the latter. Although the law professors had complete editorial freedom, the IADC retained the authority to determine whether any writings would be published.

Despite its freewheeling format (or perhaps because of it), the project motivated those involved in it to create an abundance of published writings, to give a flood of public speeches, and to play an enormously important role in the evolution of the law. The members of the committee were actively involved in the debate over Section 215 of the Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers. Because of them, the final version of this section, renumbered as Section 134, differs greatly from, and is far better than, the early drafts. It is no exaggeration to say that the project moved its subject from the periphery of academic study to the center.

The market in which insurance defense lawyers practice evolved markedly in the last decades of the 20th century. Insurers once spread their defense retentions among many independent law firms and invariably paid lawyers straight hourly rates. Now they concentrate their assignments, maintain large staff counsel operations, use flat fees and other innovative compensation arrangements...