Evan L. Smoak

A partner in Barger & Wolen’s New York office, Evan Smoak is a litigator with experience before arbitration panels, as well as state and federal courts. Focusing his practice on reinsurance, insurance, and commercial litigation, Mr. Smoak has tackled a wide range of issues important to the insurance and reinsurance industry, including letters of credit, inspections, insolvencies, occurrences, commutations, pre-hearing security, and fraud.

Mr. Smoak has represented domestic and alien insurers and reinsurers, as well as reinsurance pools. On the direct side, Mr. Smoak has successfully represented insurers in arbitration against policyholders, including allegations of fraud and misrepresentation by the policyholder and its representatives. On the reinsurance side, Mr. Smoak has won substantial arbitration awards for cedents (including attorney’s fees and compound interest), and successfully defended reinsurers against ceded claims.

In addition, Mr. Smoak has represented clients in numerous court challenges arising from arbitration. Recently, Mr. Smoak argued two cases of first impression to appellate courts in New York. In a case that was affirmed by the state’s highest court, Mr. Smoak argued how New York courts should apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Hall Street Associates, LLC v. Mattel, Inc., 128 S. Ct. 1396 (2008) and Rent-a-Center, West, Inc. v. Jackson, 130 S. Ct. 2772 (2010). In 2010, the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed his client’s victory below, and ordered that the disputes return to arbitration, as Barger & Wolen’s client had argued. Mr. Smoak also argued a leading case before the Second Circuit, establishing that arbitrators have the power to issue subpoenas to third parties for the pre-hearing production of documents, including subpoenas returnable to a single arbitrator at a preliminary conference before the final hearing.

In other state and federal proceedings, Mr. Smoak has won motions to compel arbitration, to permanently enjoin arbitration, to confirm interim awards of pre-hearing security, and to confirm final awards. Indeed, Mr. Smoak helped to obtain the first federal court decision confirming a default arbitration award, which the arbitration panel had rendered against an alien retrocessionaire that had failed to comply with the arbitrators’ security order.

A frequent speaker at CLE programs, Mr. Smoak will co-chair Harris Martin’s Advanced Reinsurance Arbitration & Mediation Conference. Mr. Smoak has also served on the panels at ARIAS Arbitrator Training Workshops, as well as Mealey’s and American Conference Institute CLE programs, and has published articles relating to the fields of insurance and reinsurance. See, e.g., “Standards for Vacating Arbitration Awards,” presented to the ACI Seminar (Sept. 2008). A member of ARIAS-U.S., Mr. Smoak is listed in Who’s Who in American Law and Who’s Who in America.

Mr. Smoak received his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law (J.D., 1992), and was graduated from the University of South Carolina Honors College (B.A.S., cum laude, 1989), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the Thomas Moore Craig Award as the outstanding member of the Class of ‘89. Mr. Smoak is admitted to practice before state and federal courts in New York and Connecticut, as well as the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits.