Ray Tamaddon

Attorney Biography

Ray Tamaddon focuses his practice in insurance coverage disputes and litigation, coverage advice, and bad faith litigation involving a wide array of third-party and first-party issues. Ray serves as lead counsel in large-exposure complex insurance coverage cases in California, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, and Hawaii. He has first-chaired numerous jury trials and arbitrations and frequently briefs and argues insurance issues of first impression.  He has served as appellate counsel in a number of reported significant insurance coverage decisions.

He has extensive experience providing insurers strategic guidance and representation in pre-suit negotiations, mediations, arbitrations, and mandatory settlement conferences based on cost-effective and realistic strategies. He also prepares and oversees the preparation of numerous opinion letters and coverage position letters involving commercial general liability, property and casualty, errors and omissions, directors and officers, and personal lines policies.

Ray conducts periodic training of insurance clients’ claims staff on legal, coverage, and extra-contractual issues and provides presentations regarding the latest trends and developments in insurance law and industry. He often partners with insurance clients in assigning and managing panel and local counsel for defense of underlying actions.

Ray assists the underwriting department of insurers with crafting insurance policy language and liaises between the claims and underwriting departments to achieve an optimal balance between risk management and underwriting goals.

Ray graduated in 1986 from Bowdoin College in Maine with an A.B. in Government and Economics. He graduated in 1989 from the Boston University School of Law Center, where he received an American Jurisprudence Award in Professional Responsibility. Ray is admitted to practice in California, and has also served as pro hac vice counsel representing insurers in a number of western states and Hawaii.  He is also admitted to practice in all of the United States District Courts in California and the Ninth Circuit.

Currently, Ray is an Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law. Ray teaches Global Legal Skills, an experiential law course on legal writing and oral advocacy skills.

Prior to joining SPCC, Ray was a partner at a national firm serving insurance clients. He also worked as a Major Claims Senior Coverage Litigation Attorney at an in-house litigation firm for Resolute Management, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway Company.

Ray also occasionally serves as a mediator and as an Arbitrator with the American Arbitration Association. He also holds a California Real Estate Broker’s license.