Biography

Will Bennett is a Partner in the California office and co-chair of the firm’s power and energy sector group. Will’s practice focuses on complex insurance recovery for corporate policyholders.

Many of Will’s clients come from the construction, real estate, and power & energy sectors, but he has continuously represented policyholders in nearly every industry throughout his career, including handling multi-million dollar coverage disputes for tech companies, higher education, non-profits, manufacturers, diverse private equity portfolio companies, food & agriculture companies, equipment suppliers, and vertical transportation providers, amongst many others.

In addition to coverage litigation, Will is regularly called upon to structure insurance programs to maximize coverage and reduce potential gaps. He advises clients on contractual risk transfer issues and frequently drafts and negotiates indemnity and insurance provisions in his clients’ contracts.

Will is a regular speaker at national conferences and industry seminars, including IRMI, CFMA, AGC, and the ABA Forum on Construction Law. He has written extensively on insurance recovery, construction risk management, and related topics, with articles and commentaries appearing in publications such as Risk Management Magazine and California Constructor Magazine. In 2025, Will was recognized by Law.com California Legal Awards as a “Lawyer on the Fast Track,” and he has consistently been featured as a Super Lawyers Rising Star.

Experience

Will has helped his clients recover nearly half a billion dollars in insurance proceeds. He has tried multiple cases to trial verdict as lead counsel, and counsels insureds across the United States in all aspects of risk, from policy placement strategy through litigation of claims to trial and appeal. In addition to his state admissions, Will has represented clients pro hac vice in more than a dozen jurisdictions.

Will represented the owner of the Louisiana Hard Rock Hotel that collapsed during construction, orchestrating significant recoveries across multiple lines of coverage. He has represented many of the United States’ largest contractors in securing numerous seven and eight-figure recoveries on commercial, residential, and heavy infrastructure projects.

Will successfully represented a global renewable energy producer in coverage litigation regarding extensive damage from atmospheric river events to a wind farm project in California’s Central Coast. He has recovered more than $50,000,000 on behalf of several non-profit and higher education organizations targeted in claims involving abuse and molestation by individuals with alleged connections to them.

Insights by Will Bennett

Anatomy of an Insurance Dispute

Authored by: Will S. Bennett (SDV) and Joanna Grant (Fenchurch Law) In early 2025, we participated in a panel discussion about the similarities and differences in the process of resolving a disputed insurance claim. We were both so taken by the striking differences in the process and had such a good time learning about each […]
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SDV’s 2025 Contractor’s Checklist for Owner-Placed Builder’s Risk Insurance

Builder’s risk policies are manuscript and complex, and many contractors don’t fully understand the nuances of how and where the coverages they need come from in the policy. Time and again we see contractors taking risk contractually that builder’s risk insurance could have supported, but the policies fall short for reasons identified in the checklist. […]
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Historical Long-Tail Claims in California Subject to a Vertical Exhaustion Rule

California’s complex saga of long-tail injury coverage under general liability policies took an interesting turn in the California Supreme Court’s recent decision in Truck Ins. Exch. v. Kaiser Cement.1  In Truck, the court made it clear that Insureds can access excess policy limits without first exhausting all triggered underlying primary coverage, provided the underlying limits for the […]
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Admissions

California, Connecticut, Missouri, New York
Central District of California
Eastern District of California
Northern District of California
Southern District of California
District of Colorado
District of Connecticut
Eastern District of Missouri
Eastern District of New York
Southern District of New York
Second Circuit Court of Appeals
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals