Marshall Conway Bradley Gollub & Weissman, P.C.

Focus and practice areas

Insurance defense is the core of the work, and the firm has built its work around it since 1986. Marshall, Conway, Bradley & Gollub P.C. handles insurance coverage questions alongside the defense side, so the same office argues over what a policy covers and defends the claims that fall under it. Reinsurance and subrogation round out the insurance work.

The defense docket runs across several kinds of liability. It covers construction accidents tied to New York State labor law, products liability, general liability, motor vehicle liability, toxic torts, environmental liability and professional liability. That range keeps the firm inside civil litigation, with insurance as the thread that connects the matters.

Construction and labor law claims

Construction accident claims under New York labor law tend to follow a set path. They often turn on statutory duties the law places on property owners and general contractors, and the state's scaffold law provisions figure heavily in cases involving falls and falling objects. A defense firm in this area reads incident reports, deposes site witnesses and tests whether the statute even applies to the facts. In my opinion the firm's listed labor law work fits its wider insurance defense base, since carriers insure the owners and contractors these cases name.

Who the firm represents

The client list points in one direction: insurers. The firm names national and multi-national insurance companies as clients, along with self-insured corporations. Some of those clients are based in the United States, and others are in London.

That mix shapes the kind of file the firm opens. A self-insured corporation carries its own risk, so it hires outside counsel to defend claims the way an insurer would. London market clients bring cross-border coverage and reinsurance questions. The firm answers to sophisticated, repeat buyers of legal defense, and that tends to raise the bar on file reporting.

How the team is built

The firm states that it has grown to twenty-six attorneys since 1986. The roster splits into partners, of counsel and associates, and the site says its senior partners average more than twenty-five years of legal experience. Names carry the firm: Marshall, Conway, Bradley and Gollub each appear in the title, and the full legal entity adds Weissman.

Partners and the named principals

Christopher T. Bradley practices as a partner. He earned a bachelor's degree from Manhattan College, a master's from St. John's University in 1974 and a law degree from St. John's University School of Law in 1984, and his work covers arbitration, construction and development, business and appeals. Michael Gollub, also a partner, graduated from The George Washington University Law School in 1996 and handles insurance coverage along with appellate, environmental litigation and real estate matters. Debbie-Ann Morley is a partner as well, with a bachelor's from Boston College in 1996 and a law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1999, and she has practiced with the Morley Law Firm PC in the New York area.

The site lists two of the founding names as retired partners. Jeffrey A. Marshall studied at New England Law in Boston and graduated in 1976, with a practice in personal injury defense. Robert J. Conway earned a bachelor's degree from Fordham University in 1973 and a law degree from Albany Law School of Union University in 1976, and his listed work covers personal injury, products liability, legal malpractice, business litigation and toxic torts.

Of counsel and associates

Dylan Murphy works as of counsel. He holds a law degree from Fordham University School of Law and a master's and a bachelor's from the College of the Holy Cross, and his practice centers on litigation. Earlier in his career he was affiliated with Ahmuty, Demers & McManus, another New York defense name.

The associate group carries the day-to-day litigation load. Stephen P. Bona graduated from St. John's University School of Law in 2022 and focuses on insurance coverage. Maria Ehrlich earned a bachelor's from Kenyon College in 1984 and a law degree from Tulane University Law School in 1990, works in ethics and professional responsibility and in employment and labor, and has written for the International Insurance Law Review on Chase Manhattan Bank v. Aldridge. Liza Chafiian brings commercial real estate and insurance experience, with a bachelor's from Tulane University in 1985 and a law degree from George Washington University in 1988. The roster also names Nicole Dyer, Mariel Mercado-Guevara and Stacey H. Snyder among the associates.

Where the firm appears

Court admissions give a sense of range. The firm's attorneys are admitted in New York and New Jersey state courts, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York and the District of New Jersey, the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Second and Third Circuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court. That spread lets the firm follow a coverage or defense matter through a state trial court and on to a federal appeal.

Geography matches the two offices. The firm works from New York City and from Jersey City, New Jersey, and it reports handling matters across downstate and upstate New York and much of northern and central New Jersey. As a reviewer, I read that footprint as a practical one: two metro bases covering a single dense insurance market that straddles the state line.

How matters reach a resolution

The firm reports three ways it closes a file: settlement negotiations, arbitration and trials. Most insurance defense work settles, so the negotiation column usually carries the volume, while arbitration handles disputes where a policy or a contract sends the parties to a private forum. Trials remain the endpoint for matters that do not resolve earlier.

Coverage disputes follow their own rhythm. A carrier and a policyholder read the same policy language differently, and the firm argues where the coverage line falls, sometimes in a declaratory judgment action that asks a court to decide the duty to defend or indemnify. Subrogation runs the other direction, with an insurer that has paid a claim seeking recovery from whoever caused the loss. These are the mechanics behind the practice areas the firm lists, and they map onto a roster admitted from the trial courts up to the U.S. Supreme Court.