Flaster Greenberg, a mid-sized commercial law firm celebrating 50 years of legal excellence, is proud to announce the launch of a new Art Law Industry Group in partnership with its Litigation, Transportation Law, and Insurance Counseling & Recovery Departments.
The firm’s Art Law Industry Group offers the sophisticated and focused services of attorneys who are experienced in art law and protecting collectors from the loss or damage that may occur to artwork while on display, or during transportation and storage.
Transportation Law Shareholder Chris Merrick says, “My colleagues and I are thrilled to turn our shared love for the fine art, and our legal expertise in fine art matters, into a formal practice group. In our experience, it’s common for even some of the most seasoned collectors to focus more on acquiring new pieces than on all of the complex issues that come along with art ownership – such as ensuring proper handling and storage, tax concerns, insurance coverage, and many others. We believe our new Fine Art group will provide a new and valuable service that will seamlessly handle all of these issues for our clients.”
The attorneys who make up our Art Law Industry Group hail from a variety of legal fields and backgrounds—including litigation, transportation law, and insurance counseling and recovery. Because of their broad experience with law, the arts, the unique needs of the transportation sector, and all facets of insurance coverage law, these lawyers are sensitive to the points of view and the special needs of museums, private and corporate collectors, artists, and art dealers who seek to protect their assets.
Flaster Greenberg’s Art Law attorneys help their clients drastically reduce any associated risks by identifying the right service providers, creating custom-tailored contractual agreements, finding the right fine art insurance policies, and ensuring their clients understand the policies. Our attorneys can also determine insurance coverage for damaged, lost, or stolen fine art, take legal action against insurance companies or other responsible individuals, offer counsel and advice, and more.
The attorneys leading the Art Law Industry Group are Shareholders Christopher Merrick and Jay Levin and Counsel Terri Ackerman. They also work closely with attorneys from all the firm’s departments to meet the real estate, tax, corporate, employment, and estate planning needs of their clients.
Christopher J. Merrick is a shareholder in Flaster Greenberg’s Litigation Department. Merrick is a national leader in commercial transportation, supply chain, and logistics law. His focuses on representing the interests of rail carriers, motor carriers (including household goods carriers), freight forwarders, intermediaries, warehouses, and ocean carriers in a wide variety of commercial transportation contexts, often including the transportation of fine art and antiquities. This has included notable matters involving, among other things, priceless works of art from some of the world’s best-known artists, mysterious disappearances of artwork being stored or displayed in museums, customs and import issues involving ancient artifacts, and transportation of goods located in the White House.
Jay M. Levin is a shareholder in Flaster Greenberg’s Insurance Counseling and Recovery and Litigation Practice Groups, focusing his practice on representing policyholders in disputes with insurance companies involving all types of insurance coverage. Levin has extensive litigation experience in multi-million-dollar property insurance coverage cases, including suits involving policy construction and application, cause and origin, valuation, and business interruption issues. Levin has represented collectors in insurance claims for damaged fine art.
Terri Ackerman is counsel in Flaster Greenberg’s Insurance Recovery Department. She focuses her practice on representing policyholders in disputes with insurance companies with regard to all types of insurance coverage.
Terri has extensive experience in all lines of complex insurance coverage. She also has a broad range of experience in art law, health law, government investigations, commercial litigation, construction litigation, subrogation, medical malpractice, and employment law.
About Flaster Greenberg
Flaster Greenberg, a midsize business law firm with offices throughout the Mid-Atlantic and in Florida, has been providing legal services to publicly traded corporations, privately held and family owned businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals for 50 years. With locations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Florida, Flaster Greenberg serves a broad range of clients in dozens of industries and practice areas including aviation law, bankruptcy, business & corporate, cannabis, commercial litigation, environmental, family law, gaming, healthcare, insurance recovery, intellectual property, labor and employment, real estate, taxation and trusts and estates.
