Elisa Alcabes is senior litigation counsel at the firm.  Her practice focuses primarily on insurance coverage and bankruptcy litigation, with special expertise in the areas of asbestos, environmental, and directors and officers liability coverage.  She frequently represents insurance companies that have been drawn into the bankruptcy process through the Chapter 11 filings of their policyholders.  In particular, she has been directly involved in representing insurers and reinsurers in a wide range of asbestos-driven bankruptcy cases, including Fuller-Austin, Armstrong World Industries, NARCO/Global Industrial Technologies, Babcock & Wilcox, Federal-Mogul, W.R. Grace, and others.  Ms. Alcabes works extensively on complex insurance coverage litigation involving a wide range of issues, oversees the revision and updating of a significant insurance coverage handbook, and coordinates communications with clients regarding asbestos and silica-related developments and their impact on the insurance industry.  Over the years, she has appeared as a panelist and speaker at several litigation conferences and co-chaired the 2005 Mealey’s Asbestos Insurance Conference in New York.  She is a contributing author to Successful Partnering Between Inside And Outside Counsel (West Group 2000, updated annually).

In addition to her litigation activities, Ms. Alcabes regularly provides advice and analysis to clients with respect to their directors and officers liability insurance, and consults with private equity and banking clients regarding insurance, asbestos and other mass tort issues in connection with mergers and acquisitions. 

Ms. Alcabes received her B.A. from Vassar College in 1981, her Masters of Music from The Juilliard School, and her J.D. from Columbia University School of Law in 1988 where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. 

Publications

•	Developments In New York Insurance Law: New York Joins States That Require Prejudice To Insurers For Disclaimer of Coverage Based on Late Notice; Allows Direct Actions Against Insurers
•	MDL Capital Management, Inc. v. Federal Insurance Company: Third Circuit Decision Highlights Significance of Professional Services Exclusion in D&O Insurance Policy
•	Continental Casualty Company v. Employers Insurance Company of Wausau: New York Court Decides Significant Asbestos Coverage Issues Against Insurer
•	Is Your D&O Policy What It Should Be?
•	Second Circuit Interprets New York's Fraudulent Conveyance Statute to Exclude Asymptomatic Asbestos Plaintiffs From Solvency Analysis
•	Getting Maximum Protection From Your D&O Insurance
•	A Look at Directors and Officers Insurance Post-Enron

Admissions

•	New York 1989
•	U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York 1990
•	U.S. District Court Southern District of New York 1990

Education

•	Columbia Law School, 1988 J.D. Columbia Law Review; Phi Beta Kappa; Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar
•	The Juilliard School, 1983 M.M.
•	Vassar College, 1981 B.A. Phi Beta Kappa