Kerry

M.

Griggs

Kerry M. Griggs, a Senior Member at The Cavanagh Law Firm, P.A.'s Phoenix office, formerly chaired the organization's board of directors. He has also held the roles of risk management and general counsel for the firm. In 1995, Mr. Griggs graduated in the top 15% of his class from St. Louis, Missouri's Washington University School of Law with a Juris Doctor. In addition to being named by Phoenix Magazine to the Top Attorney in Arizona list, Mr. Griggs has been selected for inclusion into the Southwest Super Lawyers list. Along with that, he has earned recognition as one of the "Top Attorneys in the Southwest" and "America's Most Honored Professionals."

Commercial litigation and first-party insurance disputes are the main areas of Mr. Griggs's work. His areas of expertise include administrative law, insurance coverage, insurance special investigations, and real estate litigation. He also specializes in product liability and consumer product warranties. He has tried several matters before juries, in arbitrations and in bench trials.

Mr. Griggs has served as lead counsel in a number of real estate and product-related lawsuits filed in state and federal district courts. In addition to coordinating coverage and special investigations, including oath exams and arson investigations, Mr. Griggs frequently counsels insurance companies on first-party coverage issues. In a number of first-party insurance losses, he acted as an appraiser.

Mr. Griggs has delivered guest lectures on a variety of risk management subjects important to running real estate brokerages for the Phoenix Association of Realtors and other regional professional real estate organizations. He has defended countless real estate brokers and agents in court cases and other risk management situations.

In order to educate professional audiences on product liability law, Mr. Griggs has delivered numerous talks. Regarding indemnity considerations in U.S. product liability litigation, he recently wrote a paper and gave a lecture in Toronto and Chicago. Mr. Griggs served as the regional editor for the second edition of the ABA book Bad Faith and Punitive Damages, Annotations to First-Party Insurance Cases (American Bar Association 2000). He frequently gives guest lectures for the International Association of Arson Investigators on topics such as how to properly investigate and litigate civil arson cases while also avoiding undue exposure. Mr. Griggs is well knowledgeable about the problems that first-party and third-party insurance providers operating in the state of Arizona are currently facing.

Mr. Griggs is a member of The Harmonie Group, the Arizona Association of Defense Counsel, the Maricopa County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the Arizona Bar Association. Off-road motorsports, metal and machine work, SCUBA diving, and leisure target shooting are some of his particular interests. Mr. Griggs is a member of the American Sand Association's board of directors, which works to maintain a sensible equilibrium between motorized off-road activity and environmental preservation.