Education:

• J.D., Boston University (cum laude), 1978
• B.A., Brandeis University (cum laude), 1968

Practice Areas:

• Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Appeals
• Business Litigation (Co-Chair)
• Insurance and Reinsurance (Co-Chair)
• Intellectual Property Litigation (Co-Chair)

Natasha Lisman has more than 30 years of experience handling complex disputes involving contracts, insurance and reinsurance, intellectual property, corporate governance, and many other matters.  She represents entities and individuals involved in a variety of industries and professions, in proceedings in federal and state trial and appellate courts and in domestic and international arbitration.  She also serves as an arbitrator, mediator, and a judicially-appointed special master.  Natasha’s ADR training includes the Harvard Negotiation Institute's Mediation Workshop, the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators Special Fellowship Course, and numerous continuing training programs for ADR neutrals offered by the leading ADR institutions.

Examples of Natasha’s most recent and ongoing matters:

• Representing an equity investor in closely held business entities in contractually prescribed mediation/arbitration proceedings arising out of disputes with the entities’ principals
• Defending a foreign bank in a federal court action brought by a U.S. bank
• Representing reinsurers in cedents’ liquidation proceedings in New York and New Hampshire state courts
• Representing a Russian assignor of patent rights in a dispute with the U.S. assignee over royalties
• Representing a municipality in a construction-related arbitration against a general contractor
• Serving as a sole arbitrator in an international commercial arbitration requiring bilingual proceedings in English and Russian
• Serving as a party-appointed arbitrator in a reinsurance arbitration
• Chairing the panels in three arbitrations of commercial and directors-and-officers liability insurance coverage disputes, including lead responsibility for the preparation of reasoned awards
• Serving as sole arbitrator in an international commercial arbitration arising out of a distribution and trademark licensing agreement, including authoring an extensive reasoned award
• Serving as a mediator in an insurance coverage dispute

Raised in the former Soviet Union and Poland until the age of seventeen, Natasha immigrated to the United States in 1962.  She received her Bachelor’s degree cum laude from Brandeis University and pursued graduate studies in political science at MIT, where she won fellowships from the Ford and Woodrow Wilson Foundations and the American Association of University Women.  After deciding to enter the law, she received her J.D. degree cum laude from Boston University School of Law in 1978.

• The Best Lawyers in America (Alternative Dispute Resolution, Commercial Litigation, Insurance Law, International Arbitration) 2007-2011 
• Massachusetts Super Lawyers (Business Litigation), Boston magazine, 2005-2009; Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts, 2005, 2008, 2009 
• Rated AV® Preeminent™ by Martindale-Hubbell 

• American Arbitration Association (Commercial, Insurance/Reinsurance, and IP rosters)
• AAA International Centre for Dispute Resolution
• World Intellectual Property Organization

Memberships:

• American Bar Association
• Boston Bar Association (Co-Chair, International Law Section; former Co-Chair, International Dispute Resolution Committee; former member, BBA governing board; former Co-Chair, Litigation Section; former Chair, Appellate Litigation Committee)
• AIDA Reinsurance and Insurance Arbitration Society (member, Law Committee)
• International Senior Lawyers Project (Executive Committee, 2010-; Board of Directors, 2001-2010)
• Board of Directors, JURIX (an organization of Russian lawyers dedicated to the defense of human rights)
• Former President and member of the Board of Directors, American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts
• Russian-American Chamber of Commerce
• Massachusetts Reinsurance Bar Association (Founding Member)

Admissions:

• Massachusetts
• U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Related News:

August 13, 2010 -
Eleven SRBC Partners Named to Annual "Best Lawyers in America" List

Eleven SRBC partners have been named to the 2011 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, an annual publication that calls itself "the definitive guide to legal excellence in the United States." This year's selections are based on surveys in which more than 3.1 million leading lawyers were asked to evaluate their professional peers.

The SRBC partners were recognized in nearly all of the firm's practice areas--see the list below (which for simplicity uses our own nomenclature rather than Best Lawyers').  And Tony Doniger was named in the prestigious separate category for "Bet-the-Company Litigation."

• Alternative Dispute Resolution (Jeffrey Stern, Natasha Lisman)
• Appeals (Susan Hartnett)
• Business Litigation (Ed Barshak, Tony Doniger, Natasha Lisman)
• Domestic Relations and Probate Litigation (Ed Barshak, Tony Doniger, Alan Geismer)
• Employment Law (Jean Musiker)
• Environmental Law (Lisa Goodheart)
• Insurance and Reinsurance (Sam Furgang, Susan Hartnett, Natasha Lisman, Regina Roman)
• Medical Malpractice & Pharmaceutical Liability (David Barry)
• Product Liability (David Barry)
• Professional Liability (Regina Roman)

May 11, 2010 -
International Lawyers' Group Elects Lisman to Executive Committee
The board of directors of the International Senior Lawyers Project has unanimously elected SRBC partner Natasha Lisman to its five-member executive committee. ISLP was founded in 2000 by a group of public-spirited senior partners of global law firms, to create a vehicle through which senior lawyers could use their skills and expertise to promote the rule of law, human rights, and equitable economic development. Natasha has been a member of ISLP's board since 2001. She frequently serves as ISLP volunteer counsel in supporting the efforts of human-rights advocates in her native country, Russia, including litigation against Russia in the European Court of Human Rights.

March 02, 2010 -
Natasha Lisman Argues Appeal in European Court

SRBC partner Natasha Lisman recently became one of the few United States lawyers to argue a case before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.

As part of her pro bono work for the International Senior Lawyers Project, Natasha argued on behalf of the petitioner in a human-rights case arising from a murder trial in Russia. Natasha worked as co-counsel with Karinna Moskalenko, a prominent Russian human-rights lawyer and head of ISLP’s partner organization, the International Protection Centre.

The petitioner in the case, Sergey Sakhnovskiy, was convicted of murder in Russia and sentenced to prison. He successfully argued in a lower chamber of the European Court that the criminal proceedings against him were unfair, in particular because, at an appeal hearing, he was not provided with adequate legal assistance and could only communicate with the court via a video link. The effect of the victory was to require the Russian government to grant the petitioner a new trial, and to pay him damages. The Government appealed to the Grand Chamber of the European Court, and it was that appeal Natasha argued.

Watch video of argument (Internet Explorer only. Press "play" and wait a moment for stream to begin. Natasha's argument starts at 1:21:16)

October 28, 2009 -
Super Lawyers Recognizes Sixteen SRBC Partners

The just-released 2009 edition of Massachusetts Super Lawyers, the annual peer-survey-based listing of outstanding lawyers, recognizes sixteen of SRBC's partners. A number of these were named as among the very top lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England. This year's list:

• Michael S. Appel, Personal Injury Plaintiff: Medical Malpractice
• David A. Barry, Personal Injury Defense: Products; Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England
• Edward J. Barshak, Business Litigation; Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England
• William L. Boesch, Business Litigation
• Anthony M. Doniger, Business Litigation; Top 10 Lawyers in Massachusetts (2nd Top Point Getter); Top 100 Lawyers in New England
• Samuel M. Furgang, Insurance Coverage
• Alan S. Geismer, Family Law
• Lisa C. Goodheart, Environmental; Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England; Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England
• Susan A. Hartnett, Insurance Coverage
• Natasha C. Lisman, Business Litigation; Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts
• Jean A. Musiker, Employment & Labor; Top 100 Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England; Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts and in New England
• Christine M. Netski, Business Litigation
• John G. O’Neill, Business Litigation
• Regina E. Roman, Insurance Coverage; Top 50 Female Lawyers in Massachusetts
• Jeffrey S. Stern, Alternative Dispute Resolution
• Paul E. White, Business Litigation

For more on Super Lawyers and its selection process, follow this link.

September 22, 2009 -
Best Lawyers Again Ranks SRBC No. 1 in Insurance Law
For the second year in a row, the peer-review publication The Best Lawyers in America has ranked SRBC the number one Insurance Law firm in Boston and in Massachusetts. Four SRBC partners were recognized for their work in insurance law: Samuel Furgang, Susan Hartnett, Natasha Lisman and Regina Roman.

August 10, 2009 -
Ten SRBC Partners Named Best Lawyers in America

Ten SRBC partners have been named to the 2010 edition of The Best Lawyers in America, which describes itself as "the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession," designed to help lawyers and clients find legal counsel in unfamiliar places or specialties. This year's selections are based on more than 2.8 million peer-review surveys. Among the highlights for SRBC this year are Tony Doniger's recognition in the category of "bet-the-company litigation," and Natasha Lisman's recognition for her work in alternative dispute resolution.

The full listings are as follows:

• David Barry
  • Medical Malpractice Law
  • Product Liability Litigation
• Edward Barshak
  • Commercial Litigation
  • Family Law
  • Personal Injury Litigation
• Anthony Doniger
  • Bet-the-Company Litigation
  • Commercial Litigation
  • Family Law
• Samuel Furgang
  • Insurance Law
• Lisa Goodheart
  • Environmental Law
• Susan Hartnett
  • Appellate Law
  • Insurance Law
• Natasha Lisman
  • Alternative Dispute Resolution
  • Commercial Litigation
  • Insurance Law
  • International Arbitration
• Jean Musiker
  • Labor and Employment Law
• Regina Roman
  • Insurance Law
  • Legal Malpractice Law
• Jeffrey Stern
  • Alternative Dispute Resolution

Follow this link to the Best Lawyers website.

July 10, 2009 -
First Circuit: Debtor Can't Sue Its Bank for Mismanagement Under "Instrumentality" Theory
A third-party creditor of a defunct company may sometimes seek to hold the company's bank liable for contributing to its failure, by relying on a common-law "instrumentality" theory. Where permitted, such a theory allows direct recovery against a lender who asserts such extensive control over a borrower that the borrower becomes a mere business conduit of the lender. As SRBC's Natasha Lisman and Andrea Studley Knowles discuss in a new Law Alert, the First Circuit recently refused to apply an instrumentality theory in a case where the defunct borrower itself sought to hold its bank responsible for causing its failure by insisting that it hire an incompetent financial manager. The case is FAMM Steel, Inc. v. Sovereign Bank (1st Cir. Jun 12, 2009).

May 26, 2009 -
Article Cites Natasha Lisman's International Human Rights Work
In a recent article on the Miller-McCune magazine website, Ken Stier writes about the groundbreaking pro bono work of the International Senior Lawyers Project, of which SRBC partner Natasha Lisman is a member. Describing ISLP's ability to call upon the particular passions and expertise of its volunteers, Stier cites Natasha's work with the Moscow-based International Protection Centre, which has brought nearly 200 cases against the Russian government in the European Court of Human Rights.

May 11, 2009 -
SRBC Partners Help Found Reinsurance Bar Association
Natasha Lisman, Paul White and Susan Hartnett, all partners in SRBC's reinsurance practice, are among the founders of a new bar group, the Massachusetts Reinsurance Bar Association. MReBA was formed to foster sharing ideas for improving the dispute-resolution process in reinsurance matters, and to promote education and collegiality among the state's reinsurance lawyers. Paul will serve as a director of the association, Susan as chair of its publications committee, and Natasha as a member of the committee charged with organizing MReBA's fall symposium.

February 12, 2009 -
First Circuit: Court, Not Arbitrator, Must Decide Challenge to Arbitration Clause
SRBC's Natasha Lisman and Bill Benson discuss a recent First Circuit decision, Awuah v. Coverall North America, Inc. (Jan. 23, 2009), which holds that even where parties have agreed to arbitrate disputes and to give the arbitrator power to rule on his own jurisdiction, a party's argument that arbitration would be too costly, and thus an illusory remedy, should be heard by a court, not the arbitrator.

January 26, 2009 -
Winning Arbitration Plaintiff Recovers Statutory Attorney's Fees
The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently upheld an arbitrator's award of attorney's fees to a prevailing plaintiff under the state's public construction bond statute, even where the parties' arbitration agreement did not authorize such an award. SRBC's Bill Benson analyzes the decision in a new Law Alert.

December 19, 2008 -
Document Firm Gets No E&O Coverage For Release of Client's Documents
SRBC's Serena Madar writes about the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's recent decision in Finn v. National Union Fire Ins. Co. of Pittsburgh, which upheld an insurer's reliance on the trade-secrets exclusion in an errors-and-omissions liability policy to bar coverage in a dispute over the release of sensitive litigation documents. The insured was the document-management firm Uniscribe, who was sued by its law firm-client Jones Day after documents from Jones Day's client DirectTV were published on the internet. As Serena explains, the court gave a broad reading to the common policy phrase "arising out of" as used in the subject policy's exclusion for "any claim arising out of any misappropriation of trade secret...," and rejected Uniscribe's challenges to the insurer's use of the exclusion. The decision is one of first impression in Massachusetts as to the meaning of "arising out of" in such exclusions.