After graduating from law school Bill spent a year clerking for the Honorable Richard Rives, United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. He then practiced law in Mobile for three years before joining the Law Department of Liberty National in 1980. Bill managed the Company’s Law Department from 1982 through 1996, becoming General Counsel in 1984. Bill was named General Counsel of Torchmark Corporation in 1994. Following his departure from in-house responsibilities, Bill has continued to be actively involved in the affairs of Liberty National.
Battle v. Liberty National This case governs the performance of over one million merchandise burial policies sold or acquired by Liberty National over the course of much of the twentieth century. Initially decided in 1978, Battle has been subject to numerous challenges since that time. Bill’s involvement in this case dates back to the early 1980’s and is on-going. Joseph v. Liberty National In this case, Bill oversaw the manual review and evaluation of over one-hundred twenty thousand applications for life insurance to refute the plaintiffs claims that Haitians were the victims of discrimination in the underwriting of life insurance. Moore v. Liberty National Life Insurance Co., 276 F.3d 1209 (11th Cir. 2001) In this case, Mike successfully negotiated a no-opt-out class settlement to put an end to multiple individual actions alleging race discrimination through the use of race distinct mortality in the historical pricing of industrial insurance.
