Carlos E. Needham is Of Counsel in the Los Angeles office of Murchison & Cumming, LLP. Mr. Needham's practice focuses on insurance coverage and complex litigation matters involving product liability, science-related issues, mass tort claims, consumer class actions and environmental matters.  He has a broad-based litigation and trial practice, primarily representing large companies in the defense of suits in the areas of insurance coverage and bad faith liability, product liability, and commercial contracts.

Mr. Needham has represented major insurance companies in some of the largest coverage litigation in California and elsewhere. He has successfully obtained summary adjudication on coverage claims in the hundreds of millions of dollars and drafted briefing in the California Supreme Court and the California Court of Appeal on some of the most important coverage issues presented in recent years, including the fundamental issue of what kinds of third party actions trigger commercial general liability coverage.

He has represented manufacturers, including prescription drugs and medical device makers, in some of the highest-profile national products liability litigation in the last ten years, such as the Vioxx and welding rod litigations. He has specialized in science-based challenges to plaintiffs' causation theories.

Mr. Needham has handled numerous complex commercial contract disputes in various contexts, including entertainment, construction, employment, and commercial real estate.  He also has considerable experience in the defense of consumer and mass tort class actions.

Mr. Needham has spoken and written on a wide array of continuing legal education issues, including insurance law, the federal Class Action Fairness Act, and California's Unfair Competition Law.  He has authored an executive level discussion of approaches to insurance disputes that is useful to both policyholders and insurance company decision makers.

As part of his pro bono work, Mr. Needham has taken disability litigation matters before the Court of Veteran Appeals, on behalf of veterans.

Mr. Needham speaks conversational Spanish.

Published Works

• "Approaches to Insurance Coverage Disputes", Inside the Minds Series, Insurance Law Client Strategies, 2007
• "The California Insurance Commissioner's Iran Initiative," Insurance Law 360, August, 5, 2009

Professional Associations and Memberships

• Association of Business Trial Lawyers 
• Defense Research Institute
   

Honors and Awards

• Southern California "Rising Star"