Jessica Lobis Buckwalter

Jessica Buckwalter practices in the areas of civil and commercial litigation, employment law, international disputes, electronic discovery, and insurance and reinsurance.  She assists clients in all forms of dispute resolution, including mediation and arbitration, as well as litigation in federal and state courts.

Ms. Buckwalter has more than 20 years of experience in employment litigation, internal investigations and alternative dispute resolution.  Her extensive background includes advising and defending employers on a variety of employment issues including sexual/racial harassment and discrimination, retaliation, wrongful termination, and wage and hour disputes.  Jessica regularly conducts workplace investigations into claims of harassment, discrimination, compliance, and other workplace matters and prepares reports for employers.  She also counsels employers in various aspects of labor and employment law, including termination decisions, employee discipline, wage and hour matters, employer policies and compliance with federal, state and local laws.

Ms. Buckwalter's practice also focuses on litigating cases arising out of complex international financial frauds, with an emphasis on security fraud involving subprime mortgages and structured financial products, and electronic discovery.  Through her extensive experience dealing with discovery issues in complex litigation, Ms. Buckwalter has developed substantial knowledge and proficiency in the area of electronic discovery.  Ms. Buckwalter provides focused guidance and expertise on information governance and electronic discovery matters to Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss's lawyers and their clients, including providing case and client-specific advice about meeting preservation obligations, addressing "meet and confer" obligations, and attending court appearances that address eDiscovery matters.  Ms. Buckwalter also assists with developing strategies for efficient and effective data harvesting, review and production, and implementing cost-shifting and cost reduction strategies.

Ms. Buckwalter represents domestic and foreign insurers and reinsurers with respect to a variety of insurance related matters including those involving coverage, consolidation of arbitrations, rescission, notice, allocation, bad faith, claims handling practices, and follow the fortunes, among other issues.  She provides coverage opinions, case resolution strategy and where necessary, representation in mediation, arbitration and litigation.

Professional Affiliations

• District of Columbia Bar Association
• California Bar Association
• American Bar Association

• Associate, Severson & Werson
• Judicial Extern to the Honorable Richard Huffman, California Court of Appeal Fourth District

• Representation of Australian hedge fund in multiple actions filed domestically against prominent Wall Street banks and collateral managers stemming from the fraudulent sales of collateralized debt obligations and other subprime mortgage products.
• Represented insurers in coverage litigation in West Virginia brought by a large coal mining company.