Profile

Education

  • Emory University School of Law, JD (with honors), 2010
  • High Point University, BS, 2006

As a partner in the Miami office, Junaid focuses his practice on insurance coverage. He has extensive experience representing insurers in complex litigation pending in state and federal courts across the country. He also has significant appellate experience, including arguing before the Eighth and Eleventh Circuit Courts of Appeal. In addition to Florida, Junaid is also barred in Georgia and Tennessee.

During his years of practice, Junaid has handled a vast variety of coverage issues, including those arising under commercial general, professional, directors and officers, automobile, and employment liability insurance policies. He has advised clients on a broad spectrum of claims handling issues ranging from initial coverage evaluations to the implementation of best practices for bad faith avoidance. 

Prior to private practice, Junaid worked as a staff attorney for the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida. He is also fluent in Urdu.

Qualifications and admissions

  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Tennessee
  • US District Court, Northern, Middle and Southern Districts of Florida
  • US District Court, Northern District of Georgia
  • US District Court, Eastern District of Tennessee
  • US Court of Appeals, Eighth and Eleventh Circuits

Presentations and publications

  • Co-author, “All claims must be analyzed before a district court can exercise its discretion to dismiss a Federal Declaratory Judgment action in the Eleventh Circuit,” published for Kennedys (June 2022)
  • “Florida Good Faith Law,” In-House Client Training (May 2022)

Report decisions

  • James River Ins. Co. v. Rich Bon Corp., 34 F.4th 1054 (11th Cir. 2022) (concluding district court abused its discretion in dismissing insurer’s declaratory judgment action because it failed to properly apply the “totality-of-the-circumstances” analysis required for Brillhart/Wilton abstention)  
  • Safeway, Inc. v. James River Ins. Co., No. 6:22-CV-132-PGB-DCI, 2022 WL 1152797 (M.D. Fla. Apr. 13, 2022) (concluding insurer owed no duty to defend or indemnify because putative additional insured was not being sued for the named insured’s vicarious liability)
  • Davis v. Great N. Ins. Co., No. 21-61958-CIV, 2021 WL 5577233 (S.D. Fla. Nov. 29, 2021) (granting insurer’s motion to dismiss bad faith action with prejudice under New York law)
  • Privilege Underwriters Reciprocal Exch., Inc. v. James River Ins. Co., 315 So. 3d 662 (Fla. 4th DCA 2021) (affirming summary judgment in the insurer’s favor on the basis of a residential exclusion)
  • Topp's Mech., Inc. v. Kinsale Ins. Co., 968 F. 3d 854 (8th Cir. 2020) (in a matter of first impression holding that waiver and estoppel are not available to broaden coverage under a claims-made policy pursuant to Nebraska law)
  • Kinsale Ins. Co. v. Murphy, 285 So. 3d 411 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019) (granting insurer’s writ of certiorari because the trial court departed from the essential requirements of law by denying motion to quash nonparty subpoena)