James is an insurance litigation lawyer and strategic advisor to property insurers, and the Managing Director of Ligeti Partners. He has extensive experience in handling property damage matters on behalf of major Australian insurers, with a particular focus on motor vehicle insurance, commercial property and marine insurance.

James oversees a team that handles approximately $100 million in litigated claims annually. He has worked with many of the leading insurers in the Australian market place, including Youi, Auto & General Insurance, Suncorp, Marsh and NTI. He has also worked with both small and large claims management and self-insured companies, and practised across all Australian jurisdictions.

As well as handling both recovery and defended proceedings, James is regularly instructed in relation to credit hire matters and strategy development, “recovery agent” claims, indemnity disputes, policy interpretation, matters involving issues of fraud, domestic carriage of goods claims and the application of the unfair contractual terms provisions, commercial property recoveries, and complex liability disputes.

James’s passion is working with claims teams to build systems and implement strategies that improve recovery and settlement rates. He aims to create frameworks with his clients that equip their teams with the tools to respond to the many challenges faced in handling property claims in a manner that is consistent with their business’s goals and values.

Over the years, James has built strong and long-lasting relationships with his clients through regular and open communication. He has given presentations to more than 1000 claims officers across dozens of claims teams, over many years. More generally, he has successfully represented his clients in some of the leading cases in his areas of practice.

James is extremely proud of the team he leads. A number of the lawyers he has supervised have progressed from entry-level roles to senior positions in the industry within relatively short periods. He believes in working with all staff, including junior practitioners, to build career paths from the outset tailored to their personal ambitions. He endeavours to create an environment where those in his team feel supported and can thrive.

What does success for your clients look like to you?

Our clients are predominantly insurers, who operate in a complex environments. First and foremost, success for me is achieving a client’s immediate object in a matter. This may be recovering money, reducing its exposure to paying money, or being provided with clear and accurate advice and recommendations.

 

But there are other things that form part of ‘success’. We are partners with our clients, but also have a role, in some situations, to help them learn about the legal issues associated with their claims. In addition to the learning, we want our clients to feel comfortable communicating with us, and that they can trust that we will advocate for them.

 

Underpinning this, we always want to act in a way that enhances our clients’ reputations with their customers and the wider market, and which complies with the various regulatory requirements insurers face as well as our own ethical obligations.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when reviewing a claim?

The first thing that should always come to mind is a question – why has our client sent us this claim? It sounds simple but it’s really important to actually stop and think about it. Usually, there is an obvious answer to the question (e.g. to have the other party compensate them for a loss), but surrounding this there are often more nuanced reasons. Those may include a broader strategy that the client wants to adopt on a particular claim type, or against a particular opposing entity. In other cases, there may be broader legal issues affecting a whole claim portfolio that a client wishes to test before a Court. Sometimes, there may be a high profile claim, with media attention, which of course means the claim needs to be handled sensitively and in a way that protects our client’s reputation.