Judith Fournie Helms

Judith Helms is a founding partner of Tressler, Soderstrom, Maloney & Priess, LLP. Judy focuses her practice in the area of complex insurance coverage and bad faith litigation throughout the United States.

Judy's practice includes consultation with insurers, and work at the trial and appellate level on diverse insurance coverage issues. She currently specializes in claims brought for intellectual property related claims, as well as technology issues.

Judy has been a frequent lecturer on insurance coverage issues, and has spoken at seminars on numerous topics including: effective oral advocacy, choice-of-law, bad faith, advertising injury/personal injury, allocation, and loss-reporting issues.

She is a member of the American, Illinois State and Lake County Bar Associations and the Illinois Association of Defense Trial Counsel. Judy is also a member of the Association of Defense Trial Attorneys and Defense Research Institute, where she served as Chair of the Industry-wide Litigation Committee. She is also a past member of the DRI Law Institute for which she was responsible for directing its annual seminars on Bad Faith, Excess and Reinsurance, and Industry-wide Litigation.

Judy was named one of the "Top 50 Female Illinois Super Lawyers" by Illinois Super Lawyers® magazine in 2005 and 2008. She was also recognized as one of the top insurance coverage attorneys in Illinois for the past four years, most recently in the February 2008 issue of Chicago magazine, as well as the 2008 Illinois Super Lawyers magazine. In addition, Judy has recently been recognized by her peers as a Leading Lawyer in a survey by Law Bulletin Publishing Company and listed on LeadingLawyers.com.