Many have been turned down by Harvard Law School.  The applicant traditionally gets the disappointing news by way of a thin letter.  But for Neil Selman, word that he would not be moving to Cambridge came a different way.

The namesake of Los Angeles-based Selman Breitman, LLP had been wait-listed at the iconic institution.  He convinced the Dean of Admissions to let him come in and make the case why he would be a valuable addition to the in-coming class.       

Selman arrived.  The dean grabbed the applicant’s file, stared down at a piece of paper and informed him that he had been rejected the day before.

“The next thing I remember,” Selman tells me, “I was standing outside of the law school.  It was pouring rain and I had no umbrella.  I was crying.  Suddenly, it stopped raining.  An elderly gentleman had put his umbrella over my head.  He asked me if I was ok.  No, I told him, and recounted the whole story.  He walked me several blocks back to my motel and assured me it would be OK.”   

That kindly gentlemen was right.  Selman, perhaps the only Harvard Law School applicant to be rejected in  person, went on to graduate from the University of Southern California Law School in 1974 and have a wonderfully successful career as both a coverage lawyer and law firm founder.

Selman hit the ground running.  “I was really lucky to start my career working for a senior partner who was not the most ‘hands-on guy,’” he tells, “so I could take matters forward and be more involved than a first or second year lawyer ordinarily would be.” 

The timing was right too, the 71-year-old Southern California native explains: “It was the heart of the med-mal crisis of the 1970s.  This lawyer did med-mal work.  Doctors had their backs up because they were getting sued so much, and they had consent provisions in their policies.  So cases went to trial.  In my 15th month of practice, I managed to convince my supervising lawyer that I could handle a jury trial for a doctor in a defective breast implant case.  I won the case and it gave me credibility with the carrier.” 

Selman was fortunate enough to try “more cases in the first four years of practice that one would think possible for a young lawyer.  Imagine today,” he says, “if we told an insured and a large carrier that a lawyer, starting his or her second year of practice, would be taking the matter to trial.”

Late Bloomer

Selman’s success in the courtroom would have seemed unlikely to some when he was younger.  “I was not a rebellious kid,” Selman says, “but I was when school was involved.  I simply refused to study subjects that I thought were useless, and my parents were a constant presence in the school office during junior high and high school.”

Only through the grace of a French teacher, who knew that Selman’s mother was a teacher, did he avoid a “D” each semester.  The struggling lycéen was allowed to do extra credit to avoid having to repeat the class.  But it obviously wasn’t enough.  “Once in Paris when I finished my food,” Selman recounts, “I told the server, ‘Je suis fini,’ which is the equivalent of ‘I am dead.’  I put Henri into panic mode.” 

But Selman turned the corner. “I had a “C” average upon graduation.  I was involved in student government and the faculty advisor was really close with the Dean of Admissions at USC.  He personally interviewed me and said, ‘I am the Dean of Admissions here and even I can’t take you!’  But he offered me a deal.  ‘Go to a junior college for a semester and get a 3.0.  If you do, you can enroll at USC.’  I went to LA City College.  Typical for me, I got straight “Bs.”  What a dope.  But I got into USC.”

All’s well that ends well.  “I’m a very introspective person,” Selman says, “but I cannot figure this one out.  I simply do not know what changed for me, but I became a model student.  I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and looked forward to law school.”

The Glass Is Half-Full

Selman left that first firm after five years and started his own with two friends from law school.  “I was 30, had no idea what it took to run a firm, but I thought work would follow me, so it would work out,” Selman recalls. 

He took a huge risk.  “I had to take out a $75,000 loan for furniture, insurance, rent, salaries.  It wasn’t easy, as this was 1980 to 81, and we had rampant inflation.  My bank loan was prime plus 3%, so sometimes I paid 21%!”

I ask Selman about taking this gamble.  “I didn’t think of the risks as much as I thought of being able to create the type of firm that I would want to work in.”  Selman credits his DNA for helping with the decision.  “Throughout my entire life, I have always been a full-on optimist, and my mind simply does not go to failure.  Some people see the glass as half-full, but I see the glass half-full only because I had a great time drinking half of what was in it.”

This, Selman says, generally makes him a good managing partner, because he focuses on opportunities -- and not what can go wrong.  “I can make decisions and start initiatives, and I’m also good for firm morale and projecting confidence.” 

But the Selman Breitman managing partner is thankful that some people at the firm see the snifter differently.  “Thank heavens for my partners who often bring a necessary dose of cynicism or mistrust and restraint to situations.  Because of them, our firm has avoided some poor hiring and other strategic decisions and we did not buy the Brooklyn Bridge when it was offered.  I just couldn’t convince them that it was a pretty good price.  And I still think we missed the boat when that offer to buy the Hollywood sign came along.”   

The Road To Selman Breitman

A year after taking that big risk, Selman did it again, joining with a friend and forming Smylie and Selman.  “Our firm started to grow,” Selman explains, “and by 1989, we had eighteen lawyers doing insurance and three doing real estate law.  But the combination of practices wasn’t working out economically.  So, in 1989, we started Selman, Breitman & Burgess, which later became Selman Breitman.”

Selman pokes fun at the name change.  “We were one of the first U.S. firms to drop the ampersand and became Selman Breitman.  It took us one-hour to decide on color, font and the decision to use a centered dot to separate the names.  When we last changed our design, a few years back, we, of course had to hire a firm which described this as a “branding” issue.  You know what that means?  It was more expensive and more time was spent on what shade of red to use than the entire process took when we did it ourselves.”

These days Selman Brietman has about 120 lawyers, with about 60% of its work being insurer-side coverage.  In addition to its Los Angeles home base, the firm has other offices in California, as well as Las Vegas and Seattle.    

Its co-founder explains that practically all of the firm’s growth has been organic.  With minor exceptions, Selman says, hiring laterals, “with a great book of business” – read with sarcasm -- “has somewhat drained my half-full glass.  We are very wary of lateral growth.  We’ve all been to a wedding where you question why these people are together, and at the end you have the feeling you should throw Minute Rice, right?”

Selman tells me that he and his partners “did not have any sort of plan or expectation of growth.  I remember in the early days hoping we could get our firm to 12 lawyers.  But we have kept our clients, and transition in our industry has led to introductions to new clients over the years.  Once we get a client, we seem to grow our presence with that client, and that is how we have expanded.  Essentially, we have grown to meet the demand for our services, and not by adding existing practice groups.” 

It All Started With Environmental

Like many, Selman traces his career as a coverage lawyer to asbestos and environmental work.  First, as a defense lawyer.  “When I started my first firm at 30, I had an asbestos client with 7,500 cases in California.  At some point,” Selman says, with disbelief, “the lead carrier wanted us to file, on behalf of the insured, a cross-complaint against the seven major tobacco companies.  The carrier was focused on the synergistic effect of smoking and asbestos in causing resultant disease.  So, at 31, with one associate, we do exactly that and get into a battle with the largest law firms representing the cigarette companies.  Perhaps because we were proving lack of exposure to our client’s products, and the stir we were causing with our cross-complaints, my client was dismissed in all 7,500 cases.”

However, on account of his success, Selman had essentially put himself out of business.  But those grateful carriers started sending the firm other work, including coverage and bad faith.  “That is really how I got my start in coverage law.”  Selman also recalls that a “now deceased famous coverage lawyer at the time had a reputation as a ‘drinking man’ at lunch.  One carrier called me, and after establishing that I did coverage work, asked, ‘Will you return my phone calls?’  I said ‘yes,’ and that relationship began. It’s pretty amazing that it can be that simple.”

At the time, Selman says, there were coverage lawyers who knew more than him, but he soon received the first complaints dealing with asbestos exposure and environmental pollution.  And here it was different.  “I was as good as anyone because the issues were all new, with unique forms, old policies, and latent injury.  We were all taking our first steps on the moon and figuring it out together.  Our firm experienced significant growth and began to go to other cities.”

Besides his own practice, Selman says that “environmental litigation changed everything about coverage.  The amount of cases skyrocketed and there were lots of lawyers arguing over the meaning of the smallest words and intent.  And the amounts of money involved were huge.  We were dealing with coverage charts that went up to the hundreds of millions of dollars and covered decades.  It was intellectually challenging, yet very collegial due to the number of lawyers involved.  But I think it led to coverage being discovered as a hugely important aspect of the law.”

Selman also points to bad faith as a cause of insurance coverage becoming its own discipline.  “California led the way in this area.  So, along with the environmental and asbestos coverage issues, policyholder counsel learned how to create a much more dangerous environment for insurers who make errors in judgment regarding the handling of claims and resolution of coverage issues.  A karate expert learns to apply pressure to one place in the opponent’s body to cause it to surrender and the policyholder bar learned from Mr. Miyagi how to use bad faith in the same way.”

The Music Man

Away from the office, Selman makes time for music.  From high school to the middle of his second year of law school, Selman taught banjo and guitar, which he started learning around age 11.  He still plays his instruments after work, calling it “a great relaxer.”

“My original holy trinity was the Kingston Trio,” Selman tells me, “and my wife and I still spend a great deal of time in the music world. We go to rock shows, strongly support the L.A. Philharmonic and the new classical music-oriented Ojai Music Festival.  During the summer, we are at the Hollywood Bowl a few times a week.” 

Selman says that he stays current on classical, chamber, jazz and rock.  “Our car radio dial is moving around constantly.” 

Selman is also on the Board of Directors of CASA-LA (Court Appointed Special Advocates).  Its mission is to recruit volunteers who are assigned to work with a child in the foster care system on a one-on-one basis and try to get the best possible outcome for the child.  “Los Angeles County,” Selma says, “has over 35,000 foster kids and the system is overwhelmed, so CASA’s make a difference in the child’s life, often saving the child from abuse or neglect and literally changing the kid’s life.  Unassisted foster children are at huge risk for academic failure, homelessness, addiction, and involvement with the criminal justice system. I’m really proud of my firm for being an important sponsor of CASA as well.”

“Insurance coverage is more important than ever,” Neil Selman tells me.  “And so is the need to be right.  Those of us who work in this space should feel fortunate that we are trusted with such interesting and important work on both sides of the issues.”