The View From the Corner Office

A lot gets written about Lawyers Professional Liability Insurance (LPLI) but most of it discusses claims or risk management issues. It seems to me that those of us in the "Corner Office" neglect the business aspects of LPLI. We all talk about hard markets, reinsurance capacity, "judicial hell holes" and predatory competition when we get together (all with appropriate recognition of our Counsel's anti-trust guidelines, of course). We don't talk to our customers and other consumers about what that stuff all means to folks on "Main Street" who we befuddle with our application processes and who we expect to blindly accept our companies' policy forms, exclusions, endorsements and rate structures without any good understanding of what it all means and why we do what we do.

This Blog is dedicated to all those folks on Main Street with the hope that over time we can demystify some of it and put bits and pieces together that will both explain some of the big picture questions and even provide focus to some local or regional issues as they surface both within ALPS universe, the greater LPLI marketplace and even the property and casualty industry as a whole. I very much hope that "The View from the Corner Office" becomes a place where anybody, not just lawyers, can feel comfortable raising questions, stating propositions and generally creating a dialogue that allows us all to learn a little about LPLI and make more effective decisions about how the industry offers our products and how lawyers make decisions about coverage and utilization. If I accomplish just a little bit of what I hope for, it will be a success and of value.

ROBERT W. MINTO, JR.
President and CEO
ALPS Corporation and ALPS RRG

I've been thinking a lot lately about leadership, both in the context of businesses and communities. At times the concept makes me crazy, because many business leaders I know won't get involved in community leadership as they lack the patience to try to drive consensus. In truth when a friend suggested that I run for the legislature, I rolled my eyes and made some comment about not having the time to devote; this from the guy that drives corporate civic involvement home as being so important. This really got me going on an internal dialogue about what I have personally done in my community, and the importance of contributions, large and small.

It may surprise some of you to know that at one point in my life I was a registered Girl Scout....

Few people remember Dick Holler who wrote this song that Dion made famous in the late 1960s. His words represent a tribute to a century of Icons for social change. As I sit here thinking about Martin Luther King, Jr., I find it prophetic that a song wedges him between two equally incredible and perhaps circumstantial heroes of a common cause that began with the drafting of our Constitution, got swept under the table until the 1860s and simmered until the 1960s when our nation of laws finally decided to enforce the rights of people of all races, ethnic backgrounds and beliefs. Like the times before when rights of human dignity and belief surfaced before we raced to embrace them and then back slid to a state of comfort. Today, we grapple with...