Counsel for the moment
the claim turns.
Carriers and insureds across Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, California, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico trust us to defend complex first- and third-party coverage matters, products liability, premises, and bad-faith litigation. Trial-ready from intake.
100+
Years Combined Insurance Litigation Experience
2×
"Lawyer of the Year" — Litigation, Insurance (2022, 2024)
5
Offices · Nashville · Knoxville · Atlanta · Austin · San Francisco
Insurance carriers we defend.
Regional and national carriers across Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, and California.
Defense-only firm. Built for the carrier panel.
Johnson Evans & Headrick is a defense firm. The litigation practice represents insurance carriers, self-insured retentions, and the insureds they protect — and does not accept plaintiff-side personal-injury, plaintiff-side coverage, or ERISA bad-faith plaintiff matters. The firm's practice is organized around the operational requirements of a panel relationship: documented conflict procedures, e-billing fluency, partner-level matter ownership, and a reporting cadence aligned with carrier guidelines rather than imposed on them.
Primary Offices
Defense practice operating from four primary offices with statewide and multi-state coverage in Tennessee, Georgia, Texas, California, Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.
Defense-Only Posture
No plaintiff-side personal injury, ERISA bad-faith plaintiff, or coverage-plaintiff work intake. The firm represents carriers, self-insured retentions, and the insureds they protect.
E-Billing Systems
Active connections to Collaborati, Legal Tracker (formerly Serengeti), Passport, and TyMetrix 360°. Additional vendor onboarding accommodated on standard timelines.
File-Format Standard
Invoices submitted in LEDES 1998B by default; LEDES 1998BI V2 on request. Phase, task, and activity coding to UTBMS standard.
What we defend.
From single-vehicle premises matters to multi-district pharmaceutical and products cases, our insurance practice is built for the matters that don't get easier with time. We've represented Fortune 100 companies, regional carriers, manufacturers, and the insureds they protect.
First-Party Coverage & Bad-Faith Defense
Defending carriers in property, business interruption, and life/disability claims. Tennessee § 56-7-105 statutory exposure, parallel TCPA theories, and appraisal-clause strategy.
Third-Party Liability & Coverage Disputes
Duty-to-defend and duty-to-indemnify analyses, additional insured determinations, allocation among carriers, and declaratory-judgment actions.
Products Liability & MDL
Pharmaceutical, medical device, and consumer-products defense in coordinated multidistrict and state-court proceedings. Plaintiff steering committees met routinely.
Premises & Commercial Property
Slip-and-fall, security, and habitability matters for property owners, REITs, retailers, and hospitality clients. Pre-litigation file build-out included.
Professional Liability
E&O defense for healthcare providers, attorneys, accountants, brokers, and design professionals. Discreet investigations and pre-suit resolution.
Coverage Opinions & Reservations
Written coverage analyses, defense-cost allocation, reservation-of-rights drafting, and ongoing claim-handling counsel. We sit with the file before it's contested.
Three things we do differently.
Boutique structure, big-firm capability. Partners stay on the matter from intake to verdict — not as a pitch, but as the operational reality of how we're built.
01
Partner-Led from Intake
The partner you meet is the partner who tries the case. Carriers and insureds reach a named lawyer within hours — not a chain of intermediaries — and that lawyer stays accountable through resolution.
02
Discipline Before Discovery
We invest early in coverage analysis, reservation drafting, and claim-file build-out. The cases that resolve favorably almost always share a common pattern: the work happened before the demand letter arrived.
03
Trial as the Default
Settlement leverage comes from credible trial readiness. We try cases routinely — in state and federal court, in MDL coordinations — and that history shapes how we counsel, negotiate, and price the file.
We've sat where your claims handlers sit.
Before they were lawyers, members of our team worked inside insurance companies — as catastrophe property adjusters and international underwriters for carriers like Allstate and ACE Group/Chubb. That experience shapes how we read a claim file, how we anticipate the questions a claims handler will ask, and how we counsel carriers on coverage and bad-faith exposure. We know what the reserve meeting looks like because we've been in it.
Catastrophe Property Adjuster
Allstate
First-hand experience responding to catastrophic property losses — the same files that become bad-faith claims when handling goes wrong.
International Underwriter
ACE Group / Chubb
Underwriting large commercial accounts — the perspective that lets us see coverage positions the way a carrier built them, not just the way a plaintiff attacks them.
A representative track record.
Defense Verdict
$0
Property carrier prevails on bad-faith claim after multi-week jury trial. Represented a regional carrier in a first-party bad-faith action arising from a fire loss. Jury returned a complete defense verdict after extensive expert testimony from fire investigators and accounting experts.
Middle District of Tennessee · 2024
Summary Judgment
$2.4M
Secured complete summary judgment for a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical manufacturer in a designated bellwether case, applying learned-intermediary doctrine. Briefing now cited in coordinated proceedings nationwide.
Multi-District Litigation · 2025
Pre-Litigation Resolution
8 wks
For a national carrier, invoked the appraisal clause within the policy's 20-day window and resolved a contested commercial-property claim in eight weeks — without litigation, and on terms aligned with the carrier's reserve.
Davidson County · 2026
Shareholder · Knoxville
Matthew J. Evans
"Insurance litigation is a battle of files. The carriers that prevail are the ones whose claims handlers had the time, structure, and counsel to build a defensible record before anyone threatened a lawsuit."
Recognition
Best Lawyers in America — "Lawyer of the Year," Litigation – Insurance, Nashville (2022, 2024). Listed 2016–2026.
Experience
Defends carriers, manufacturers, and Fortune 100 clients in state, federal, and MDL proceedings.
Education
J.D., University of Tennessee College of Law (1996). B.A., University of Tennessee (1992).
Contact
Industry depth.
01
Property & Casualty
Regional and national P&C carriers across all major lines.
02
Pharma & Med Device
Fortune 100 manufacturers in MDL and state coordinated actions.
03
Hospitality & Retail
National brands and franchisees facing premises and dram-shop exposure.
04
Healthcare
Hospitals, physician groups, and allied-health professionals.
05
Construction
General contractors, subs, and design professionals on E&O and CGL.
06
Energy & Utilities
Premises, products, and large-loss property matters.
07
Transportation
Trucking, fleet, and logistics defense with rapid-response intake.
08
Financial Services
Professional liability, fiduciary, and coverage matters for advisors and brokers.
Infrastructure aligned with carrier guidelines.
E-billing platforms
Active connections to Collaborati, Legal Tracker (formerly Serengeti), Passport, and TyMetrix 360°. Additional vendor onboarding accommodated on standard timelines.
File-format standard
Invoices submitted in LEDES 1998B by default; LEDES 1998BI V2 on request. Phase, task, and activity coding to UTBMS standard (L100 case assessment / L200 pretrial / L300 discovery / L400 trial / E100 expenses / A100 activities).
Budgeting
Phase-coded litigation budgets submitted within 30 days of intake and revised at substantive milestones (Rule 12 / 26(f) / 30(b)(6) completion / dispositive briefing / pretrial). Carrier-imposed variance thresholds tracked at the matter level and surfaced before — not after — the variance event.
Status reporting
Initial case-evaluation report within 60 days of receipt of the file. Quarterly status reports as default cadence, with event-driven interim reports following significant developments (dispositive motions filed or decided, expert designations, mediation outcomes, demand changes). Reporting forms conformed to each carrier's template where one is provided.
Rate compliance
Rate structures conformed to carrier-approved rate sheets at engagement. Alternative-fee arrangements — flat-fee phases, capped engagements, and volume agreements for high-frequency adjusters — available on request and structured prior to first billing cycle.
Guidelines & audits
Carrier litigation guidelines acknowledged in writing at engagement and reflected in matter-management standard operating procedures. Pre-bill audits conducted internally before submission; post-submission audit responses returned within 10 business days.
Documented procedure, posted turnaround.
Conflict-check turnaround
Centralized conflict check completed within one business day of receipt of parties, claim number, and matter description. For after-hours intake on catastrophic losses, partner is reachable within four hours and conflict clearance can be confirmed conditionally pending full-database review the next business day.
Intake fields required
Carrier name, insured, claimant, opposing counsel (if known), claim number, policy number, date of loss, forum, and any retained experts. Adjuster contact information and applicable carrier guidelines, where available, requested at intake to set the matter management plan from day one.
Engagement letter
Returned within two business days of clearance, conforming to carrier-required engagement terms and identifying lead counsel, supporting team, rates, and reporting cadence. Where independent counsel is required under Cumis-style allocations, the issue is identified at the reservation-of-rights stage and discussed with the carrier prior to acceptance.
Catastrophic-loss response
Partner reachable within four hours, day or night. For property and commercial-vehicle losses, on-scene attendance with retained investigators can be coordinated within 24 hours across the firm's primary offices and within 48 hours in adjoining states. After-hours line: 615.747.7704.
Coverage counsel work, scoped explicitly.
Coverage opinions
Written coverage analyses under primary and excess CGL, business-auto, commercial property, and EPLI forms. Opinions delivered with policy-provision citations, fact-specific application, and a clearly framed recommendation on coverage, defense, and indemnity.
Reservation of rights
Reservation-of-rights letters drafted to identify specific policy provisions in issue and the facts placing coverage in doubt, revisited as the investigation develops. Boilerplate reservations treated as a defect, not a default — consistent with Sixth Circuit and Tennessee appellate guidance.
Declaratory judgment
Coverage DJ actions prosecuted and defended under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 and state analogues (O.C.G.A. § 9-4-1 et seq.; Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-14-101 et seq.). Wilton/Brillhart abstention briefing and forum selection handled at filing.
Bad-faith defense
Defense of first-party statutory bad-faith claims under Tenn. Code Ann. § 56-7-105 (25% penalty cap; 60-day demand requirement) and O.C.G.A. § 33-4-6 (50% penalty + fees), and parallel claims under state UDAP/consumer-protection statutes. Appraisal-clause practice integrated where applicable.
Allocation & contribution
Multi-carrier allocation analyses (pro-rata, all-sums, time-on-the-risk), additional-insured determinations, and contribution actions among primary and excess carriers. Coordination of joint-defense agreements where multiple insurers are co-defendants.
Before you call.
Both. We are on the approved panel of several major P&C carriers and also work directly under individual engagement letters with regional carriers, captives, and self-insured retentions. We are happy to navigate guidelines, billing protocols, and reporting requirements that vary by carrier.
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