Mary Craig Calkins and Cheryl S. Chang Recognized as “Women of Influence” by Los Angeles Business Journal
Blank Rome LLP is pleased to announce that partners Mary Craig Calkins and Cheryl S. Chang have been recognized as Women of Influence: Attorneys by the Los Angeles Business Journal, honoring the "most influential women legal professionals" in the Los Angeles area.
The 2023 honorees are recognized for their "exceptional legal skill and achievement across the full spectrum of responsibility, exemplary leadership as evidenced by the highest professional and ethical standards, and for contributions to the Los Angeles community at large." The supplement highlights each honoree’s career, practices, and some of their recent achievements.
Earlier this year, Cheryl was also recognized in the Los Angeles Business Journal's Women of Influence: Finance and Leaders of Influence: Minority Attorneys supplements.
To read Mary's and Cheryl's published Women of Influence: Attorneys profiles, please click here or read in full below, as published in the Los Angeles Business Journal.
Mary Craig Calkins
Partner, Insurance Recovery
Blank Rome LLP
Mary Craig Calkins has more than 35 years of high-profile insurance coverage experience representing policyholders exclusively in some of the nation’s most significant headline-grabbing disputes ranging from directors and officers liability, entertainment/media, wildfires and natural disasters, intellectual property, cybersecurity, and other coverage areas. Often “behind the curtain,” she has recovered hundreds of millions of dollars from her clients’ insurers. Calkins was lead coverage counsel for a high-altitude aerospace company in litigation brought by the company’s insurer to avoid coverage for an accident. After a suit by the capsule manufacturer, the company’s insurer filed a separate lawsuit seeking to avoid duties to defend and pay settlements or judgments. The matters successfully settled in 2022. Calkins is also lead coverage counsel for a multi-media communications company on various matters, including coverage for the highly publicized election machine fraud cases alleging defamatory news reports.
Cheryl S. Chang
Partner & Vice Chair, Financial Institutions Litigation and Regulatory Compliance Practice; Co-Chair, Los Angeles Office
Blank Rome LLP
As Blank Rome’s first female Asian-American partner and vice chair of the firm’s nearly 50-member Financial Institutions Litigation and Regulatory Compliance practice group, Cheryl Chang is a skilled leader and a formidable litigator. She consistently achieves favorable outcomes for her clients in complex corporate matters. Chang litigates for significant corporate and entertainment clients before state and local courts in the areas of intellectual property, antitrust, and consumer class action defense. She is recognized by co-counsel and opponents alike for her keen ability to see legal issues and business decisions from her clients’ point of view. Fluent in spoken Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, and French, she often communicates with her clients, and negotiates with adversaries, in multiple languages. Last year, a team led by Chang successfully defended a global software provider and its foreign parent company in an arbitration action brought by a reseller seeking nearly $8 million in damages.