Matthew I. Kaplan

Matthew I. Kaplan is a Partner in the Los Angeles office of Tucker Ellis & West LLP. He has a wide range of trial and litigation experience in state and federal courts at both trial and appellate levels. Mr. Kaplan’s practice focuses on complex civil litigation, including commercial disputes, unfair competition and consumer class actions, trade secret, wrongful foreclosure, Truth in Lending and Real Estate Settlement Practices claims, insurance disputes, and environmental lawsuits.

Mr. Kaplan represents businesses in a wide variety of industries, although he has consistently represented banks and insurance companies during his career. He represents banks in litigation involving commercial and residential real estate loans, including the defense of claims by borrowers for “wrongful lending.” He represents insurance companies litigating first and third party coverage disputes and “bad faith” litigation, and has drafted coverage analyses and opinions on personal lines, comprehensive general liability (CGL) policies, and directors and officers and executive protection insurance.

Mr. Kaplan has also spent a significant portion of his career as an environmental litigator. A former environmental crimes prosecutor, he handled cases as both prosecutor and defense counsel under California’s Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 (Proposition 65), and the laws governing the storage, transportation, handling and disposal of hazardous substances. As defense counsel, he handles cases involving contaminated property brought under state and federal law, such as the CERCLA, RCRA and their state equivalents, as well as toxic exposure cases and governmental investigations. He has worked extensively with expert witnesses to assemble evidence needed to prove property valuation, economic damages, toxic exposures and medical causation.

Mr. Kaplan received his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, cum laude, in 1993. While in law school he clerked for the Research Department of the Minnesota House of Representatives. He received his undergraduate degree in History from the University of Michigan in 1989. Mr. Kaplan is a member of the American and Los Angeles County Bar Associations.

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