David M. Cummings

Reed Smith LLP

David is a zealous advocate for corporate policyholders, offering creative and effective strategy for developing and navigating claims and prosecuting and resolving disputes concerning all types of insurance coverage. David also acts as a trusted adviser to clients, helping them identify and navigate risks and guiding them during policy placements and renewals, successfully negotiating coverage programs designed to better reflect their unique risk profiles and minimize the likelihood of future disputes. David has a particular interest in and is a thought leader with respect to emerging risks and insurance issues, including cyber and ransomware threats, the evolving ESG and environmental landscape, and developing technologies.

David has a track record for successfully guiding clients through all phases of insurance claims, litigation, arbitration, and mediation, with particularly notable experience handling large and complex disputes, often addressing novel legal issues under all types of coverage, including general liability, property, directors and officers, professional liability, commercial crime, fiduciary liability, and cyberliability insurance, among others. As a policyholder advocate, David is routinely leveraged to bring value to commercial transactions by advising clients with respect to the fulfillment of insurance requirements and by negotiating coverage crucial to closing the deal, including representations and warranties products.

David’s representations range from large publicly-traded Fortune 500 corporations to start-ups and mid-market private companies covering industries as diverse as banking and finance, energy exploration and development, mortgage servicing and real estate, manufacturing, consumer retail and eCommerce, hospitality, entertainment and gaming, and healthcare. David’s practice is international, with depth of experience in matters across the country at the state and federal level and experience in matters involving the London and Bermuda markets, to name but a few.

David is a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and issues. He serves as the U.S. Partner Co-Chair of PRISM, Reed Smith’s LGBTQ+ affinity group. In this role, he leads the firm’s diversity initiatives and programming across the U.S. including through attorney and staff programming, training, and recruitment, as well as client engagement.