William F. "Chip" Merlin, Jr. represents policyholders. His practice focuses on insurance claim presentation and benefit recovery, insurance coverage, bad faith and wrongful claims conduct litigation. He is a Board Certified Civil Trial Attorney by the Florida Bar.
A graduate of the University of Florida, School of Law in 1982 where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Review and on the Moot Court, he became a member of the Florida Bar in 1983. He briefly represented insurance companies in coverage litigation and since 1985 has dedicated his career to seeking justice for insurance policyholders in claim presentation and disputes with their insurance companies.
Mr. Merlin is the founder and President of the Merlin Law Group. The sixteen attorney firm also limits its practice to the representation of policyholders. It maintains offices in Houston, TX, Coral Gables, FL, Gulfport, MS, and its home office is in Tampa, FL,. The firm represents commercial, governmental, residential and private policyholders throughout the gulf region and as co-counsel nationwide.
Mr. Merlin was named a finalist and then received an Honorable Mention in the LexisNexis Insurance Law Center Person of the Year 2008 -Policyholder Attorney of the Year. He is routinely invited to be a featured speaker on insurance law at some of the nation's most prestigious conferences and seminars. He has addressed his peers at the American Bar Association, the American Association for Justice, and the Florida Justice Association. He has also presented before members of such organizations as the National Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (NAPIA), the Florida Association of Public Insurance Adjusters (FAPIA), the Community Associations Institute, and the Windstorm Network.
Because of the breadth and depth of his knowledge and experience, Mr. Merlin is frequently sought to provide comment and insight into current legal issues on the stage of the national media. He has appeared on Fox News, ABC News, CNN, and MSNBC on topics as diverse as freedom of speech, employee's and property owners' rights to privacy and slander and emotional distress.
Mr. Merlin has shared his wealth of knowledge of insurance law via articles he either authored or co-authored. Some of the titles include: Hurricane Coverage and Litigation Issues; Florida's New Valued Policy Law and the Question of Concurrent Causation; Rules of the Road - A Different Methodology For Proving Duty and Breach; Ten Things a Florida Public Adjuster Can Do to Raise Professionalism and Be More Successful; Disaster Preparedness: A Call to Action, Establishing the Right Trial Theme for Your Bad Faith Case. He contributes daily to discussion of property insurance law on his blog, propertyinsurancecoveragelaw.com.
Mr. Merlin's reputation for judiciously seeking fair and just treatment of those who put their faith in their insurance providers recently earned him a governor-appointed seat on Florida's Citizen's Property Insurance Corporation Mission Review Task Force.
Some of Mr. Merlin's other honors and peer recognition include:
- AV Rated by Martindale-Hubbell
- Best Lawyers in America
- Corporate Counsel's Best Lawyers in Insurance Law
- Inclusion since 2004 in Florida Trend Magazine: Florida's Legal Elite
- Florida's SuperLawyers
- 2007 NAPIA Co-Person of the Year
- Outstanding Amicus Brief of the Year, United Policyholders,
- Eagle Talon Award, The Florida Justice Association (for upholding the highest ideals ofFlorida Trial Lawyers).
Access William F. "Chip" Merlin's Martindale-Hubbell profile on martindale.com.