Michelle d’Arcambal is a founding partner of d’QM with more than thirty-five years of experience defending companies in all aspects of commercial litigation, including class actions, mediations, evidentiary hearings, AAA and the International Centre for Dispute Resolution arbitrations, trials and appeals.

Ms. d’Arcambal has a long history of litigating complicated commercial litigation matters involving securities, mortgages, and banking. Much of her legal experience arises from her involvement in matters that arose in difficult financial times; the arbitrage/junk bond scandals in the mid-late 80’s, the savings and loan crisis in the early 90’s and the 2008 financial crisis. More recently, her matters have included claims of improper securitization and assignments of mortgages, breaches of digital advertising and mortgage servicing contracts and issues relating to distressed mortgage portfolios.

Ms. d’Arcambal has litigated scores of life and disability product rescissions, suicide exclusions, and lapse matters, through all phases of litigation. She has a deep understanding of STOLI and speculative policies, as well as sales practices and policy contract litigation. She has also defended numerous ERISA matters. Ms. d’Arcambal has also litigated cutting-edge health insurance benefits matters, provider contracts, and fraud, including egregious billing.

Ms. d’Arcambal developed a unique understanding of corporations and their businesses while working in the Legal Department of MetLife. There, she was part of a team comprised of inside and outside counsel defending the company in nationwide class actions relating to allegations concerning the sale of individual life insurance products in connection with the “vanishing premium” litigation.

Ms. d’Arcambal was previously a partner in the New York City office of Ross & Hardies, now known as McGuire Woods LLP., where she concentrated on banking and real estate litigation. Ms. d’Arcambal began her legal career in the litigation department of Brown & Wood, LLP, now known as Sidley Austin, LLP, where she concentrated on securities, surety, and real estate litigation. Part of her experience there included a rotation into the municipal bonds department.

  • Spearheaded and Co-Chaired the NAMWOLF Insurance Initiative (2005-2012)
  • Steering Committee: CARE’s New York Women’s Initiative
  • Co-Chair of the ACLI’s Class Action Working Group (1994-1997)

  • On June 12, 2025, Michelle d’Arcambal, Aimee Creed, and Vedant Gokhale presented a CLE for a client discussing the general principles and common roadblocks to rescissions, policy lapses, and interpleaders.
  • On April 9, 2025, Michelle d’Arcambal and Maureen Middleton, Assistant General Counsel at Primerica Life Insurance Company, gave a presentation entitled “The Rescission Decision,” at the DRI 2025 Life, Health, Disability, and ERISA Seminar. The presentation focused on strategies for rescinding life and disability insurance policies.
  • On March 11, 2024, Michelle d’Arcambal and a client gave a presentation entitled “Litigating Life and Disability Policies: Differences and Similarities That Will Make a Difference in Evaluating Risk and Devising Strategy,” at the Eastern Claims Conference. The presentation focused on the core differences between the issuances, claims, denials, and litigation strategies of life insurance policies versus disability policies.
  • On May 16, 2023, Vedant Gokhale, Michelle d’Arcambal, and Jackie Malyk presented a CLE for a client discussing the nuts and bolts of rescission and lapse of an insurance policy, avoiding interpleader pitfalls, and strategies to use during discovery and litigation.
  • On March 24, 2021, Michelle d’Arcambal and Vedant Gokhale gave a presentation entitled “Can You Take It Back?” at the Eastern Claims Conference. With fraudulent schemes to void policies becoming more prevalent and ongoing changes in the way insurers can perform routine contestability reviews after death, the pair discussed strategies that insurers can employ to adapt to the ever-growing changes in the industry as we enter this new decade.
  • On April 15, 2020, Michelle d’Arcambal conducted a remote presentation, sponsored by the Defense Research Institute’s LHD Corporate Counsel Committee, entitled “Rescission: Can You Take It Back?”. The presentation focused on addressing the current difficulty with obtaining information during the regular contestability investigation, and situations where policies may be rescinded after the expiration of the two-year contestability period.
  • On April 1, 2019, Michelle d’Arcambal and Maureen Middleton, Assistant General Counsel at Primerica Life Insurance Company, conducted a presentation entitled “Defending Corporate Depositions: The Best Laid Plans” at the Eastern Claims Conference, focusing on how to avoid the gnarly issues that may arise with corporate representative depositions, using specific preparation tools and guidelines.
  • On April 21, 2017, Michelle d’Arcambal participated in a panel discussion sponsored by the Third Annual Orlando Health Care Forum entitled “Perspectives on Health Plan Overpayments.” The panelists discussed strategies regarding collecting and defending health plan overpayments to providers; Ms. d’Arcambal focused on the health plan perspective and litigation.
  • On March 16, 2016, Michelle d’Arcambal participated in a panel entitled “Health Care Fraud: Litigation” at the Eastern Claims Conference. The session addressed the many ways that insurers, their customers and members, and state and federal authorities have been attempting to curb fraud in the healthcare industry.
  • Panel Speaker, Recent Attempts to Limit ERISA Affirmative Actions and to Expand Discovery in ERISA Benefits Cases, 2012 NAMWOLF Insurance Industry Initiative CLE Program
  • Co-leader, training session for major life insurer on Disability Waiver of Premium Riders (2008)
  • Speaker, Defense of Accidental Death and Dismemberment Benefits Denials, Eastern Claims Conference, Spring 1999
  • Author and Speaker, The Assault on Subrogation, 1997 ALI/ABA Conference on Life Insurance Litigation

  • The Demise of Two Rescission Truisms, M. Darcambal and V. Gokhale, DRI Newsletter, Volume 31, Issue 2, July 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Co-Author, A Perspective on Recent Class Action Litigation involving Individual Life Insurance, 1996 ALI/ABA Conference on Life Insurance Litigation.