Mary Kay Vyskocil is a Partner at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett where she is a member of the Firm’s Litigation Department.  She handles general commercial litigation.  Her practice is concentrated in insurance and reinsurance coverage litigation, securities cases, and cases involving the financial services industry. 

She has been involved in the representation of major domestic and foreign insurers in complex coverage litigations (including numerous jury trials and appellate arguments) throughout the U.S. in a wide variety of contexts, including environmental, asbestos, breast implants and other mass tort claims.  Ms. Vyskocil was one of the lead trial counsel in Shell Oil Company v. Accident & Casualty Insurance Company in California regarding coverage for environmental liabilities at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal.  She represented a major insurer in several coverage litigations seeking insurance for Y2K remediation expenses.  Ms. Vyskocil currently represents Swiss Re with respect to coverage issues arising out of the World Trade Center attack, including the Silverstein WTC property insurance dispute, which resulted in a jury verdict in Swiss Re’s favor.

Ms. Vyskocil is also active in reinsurance litigations and arbitrations in the U.S., Great Britain and Bermuda.  She has been involved in a number of precedentially important reinsurance cases, including Travelers v. Gerling (2nd Circuit re: “follow the fortunes”); Gulf v. Transatlantic (NY Appellate Court re: “access to records/privilege); Travelers v. Certain Underwriters (New York’s high court on treaty interpretation), Unigard v. North River (New York’s highest court on late notice), North River v. Cigna Re (Third Circuit on follow the fortunes), and ISLIC v. Underwriters at Lloyd’s (follow the fortunes and number of occurrences). Most recently, she obtained a $420 million summary judgment in a hotly contested reinsurance case.

Outside the insurance area, Ms. Vyskocil currently represents UBS in connection with major litigations involving residential mortgage backed securities and former officers of Washington Mutual Bank in litigation with the FDIC. She has been involved in the successful representation of JPMorgan Chase resulting in a $350 million verdict in a trial of a breach of guarantee action against Motorola arising out of the Iridium telecommunications transaction.  She was also involved in the representation of Paramount Communications in the Paramount-Viacom-QVC takeover litigation and represented Matsushita Electrical Industries in MCA v. Epstein, which was successfully argued in the U.S. Supreme Court.  Ms. Vyskocil has also served as outside counsel to the Archdiocese of New York.

Ms. Vyskocil is co-author of the leading treatise, Modern Reinsurance Law & Practice, 2d ed. (Glasser LegalWorks 2000) and is frequent lecturer and author on insurance and reinsurance coverage issues and on litigation and trial skills at continuing legal education seminars and bar association meetings. 

Ms. Vyskocil is active in professional organizations and community affairs.  She is a member of the Board of Directors and President of ARIAS U.S.  She is Vice Chair of the Board of the Federal Bar Council and currently chairs the Second Circuit Courts Committee.  She is also active in the American Bar Association’s Insurance Coverage Committee.  In addition, she is a member of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York where she has previously served on the Litigation Committee, the Federal Courts Committee and as Chair of the Insurance Committee.  She is a founding Member and Officer of the New York Inn of Court.  Ms. Vyskocil is a trustee of St. Joseph’s Seminary and of Dominican College of Blauvelt, and President Emeritus of the Alumni Board of Directors at St. John’s University School of Law.  She has also served on the law school’s Dean Search Committee.  From 1994 to 1997, she served as a co-chair of one of the subcommittees involved in the Second Circuit Study on Racial, Ethnic & Gender Fairness.  Ms. Vyskocil currently serves on the Joint Committee (of the Federal Bar Counsel and the City Bar) on Judicial Conduct.  She is also the recipient of the St John’s University Pietas Medal (June 2008).  Ms. Vyskocil serves as a Departmental Disciplinary Committee Referee appointed by the First Department of New York State’s Appellate Division. 

Ms. Vyskocil was cited in the National Law Journal’s “40 Under 40” (November 1995) which noted in particular her expertise in the area of reinsurance.  Named by Legal Media Group as one of the Top Ten Lawyers in the U.S. in the Insurance/Reinsurance field, Mary Kay is also listed in Chambers Guide to America’s Leading Business Lawyers (2006 - 2011); Best Lawyers in America (2006 - 2011); and Euromoney’s Guide to the World’s Leading Insurance & Reinsurance Lawyers (2006 - 2011).  Euromoney also named her a “litigation star” in the category of insurance (2012). Who’s Who Legal 2006 named Ms. Vyskocil one of the top 15 lawyers globally and in the top 2 in the U.S. in insurance and reinsurance, calling her “one of the global stars for insurance and reinsurance work.”  She was also named one of America’s Top 50 Women Litigators by the National Law Journal (Dec. 17, 2001), and was listed in The New York Times as one of the “Top 100 attorneys in the New York metro area” (2007 - 2010) and was named one of the Top Women Attorneys in the New York Metropolitan Area.

Honors/Associations

•	Secretary, Federal Bar Council and Member of Second Circuit Courts Committee, 2004 - Present
•	American Bar Association, Litigation Section, Committee on Environmental Litigation, Committee Vice-Chair, 1994-1998; Co-Chair, Midyear Meeting, 1995
•	Co-Chair, Annual Meeting, Section of Litigation Insurance Coverage Committee, American Bar Association (2003)
•	Member, Board of Directors, ARIAS U.S.
•	Member, Board of Trustees, St. Joseph's Seminary
•	Member, Board of Trustees, Dominican College of Blauvelt
•	St. John's University School of Law, President, Alumni Board of Directors
•	David Rockefeller Fellow, Partnership for New York City (2003-2004)
•	Founding Member and Executive Committee, New York Inn of Court
•	Association of the Bar of the City of New York, In-house/Outside Counsel Litigation Group
•	Joint Committee (of Federal Bar Council and City Bar of NY) on Judicial Conduct, 2005-Present
•	Co-chair, Reinsurance Subcommittee, Insurance Litigation Committee, American Bar Association, Section of Litigation
•	Co-Chair, Federal Bar Council Fall Bench & Bar CLE Retreat (2002-2007)
•	Member, Litigation Committee, New York City Bar Association (2005-2008)
•	Member, Federal Courts Committee, New York City Bar Association (1997-2000)
•	Chair, Insurance Committee, New York City Bar Association (1993-1996)
•	Defense Research Institute
•	American Law Institute
•	Second Circuit Task Force on Racial, Ethnic and Gender Fairness, Subcommittee Co-Chair

Publications

•	New York Court of Appeals Rejects Martin Act Preemption of Common Law Claims of Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Gross Negligence
•	Supreme Court Considers Tolling of Statute of Limitations in Section 16(b) Claims
•	Global Warming Alert: United States Supreme Court Issues Ruling in Connecticut v. American Electric Power Company, Inc.
•	Supreme Court Finds the Discover Bank Rule Preempted by FAA
•	The Supreme Court Considers Whether the FAA Preempts State Court Decision Holding Class Arbitration Waiver Unenforceable
•	The Supreme Court Holds That Arbitrators, Not Courts, May Decide Challenges To The Enforceability Of Stand-Alone Arbitration Agreements
•	The Supreme Court Vacates Arbitrators' Decision Allowing Class Arbitration Based Solely On Arbitrators' Own Policy Views
•	The Supreme Court Examines Whether Courts Must Decide the Enforceability of Arbitration Clauses Challenged as Unconscionable
•	The Supreme Court Considers Whether Class Arbitration is Permitted When the Arbitration Clause is Silent on the Issue
•	Three Federal Courts Issue Back-to-Back Decisions Addressing the Viability of Global Warming Tort Actions
•	Corban v. USAA: Reinterpreting the Anti-Concurrent Causation Clause
•	The Supreme Court Allows Non-Signatories to Arbitration Agreements to Seek to Stay Claims under the Federal Arbitration Act

Speaking Engagements

•	Andrew Frankel and Mary Kay Vyskocil To Speak at Perrin Conference’s "Emerging Insurance Coverage & Allocation Issues in 2012" Program on February 23, 2012 February 1, 2012
•	Mary Kay Vyskocil to Co-Chair 2011 ARIAS•U.S. Fall Conference and Annual Meeting November 2, 2011
•	Mary Kay Vyskocil to Speak at the 18th Annual Insurance Insolvency & Reinsurance Roundtable March 30, 2011

Admissions

•	New York 1984
•	U.S. District Court Eastern District of New York 1984
•	U.S. District Court Northern District of New York 1984
•	U.S. District Court Southern District of New York 1984
•	U.S. District Court District of Connecticut 1988
•	U.S. District Court Northern District of California 1988
•	U.S. Court of International Trade 2009
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 2nd Circuit 1984
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 3rd Circuit 1985
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 9th Circuit 1992
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit 1993
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 6th Circuit 1993
•	U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit 1996
•	U.S. Supreme Court 1989
•	Federal Circuit 2010

Education

•	St. John's University School of Law, 1983 J.D. National Moot Court Team; St. Thomas More Scholarship
•	Dominican College of Blauvelt, 1980 B.A. summa cum laude; Valedictorian