Mary Jane Stitt is a Partner in the Litigation Group. Her commercial litigation practice emphasizes commercial insurance, directors and officers liability, product liability, professional negligence and class actions.

Mary Jane has a broad-ranging insurance practice primarily representing policyholders who are major financial institutions, publicly traded companies (TSX, NYSE, NASDAQ) and large pension plan sponsors or administrators, as well as income trusts. She advises public companies on director, trustee and officer indemnification and insurance issues in connection with regulatory and criminal investigations, shareholder and securities litigation, antitrust, pension and other class actions and regulatory and criminal proceedings. She advises risk managers of public companies, and works closely in conjunction with leading insurance brokers, in respect of the procurement or renewal of significant liability insurance programs. She performs independent insurance program reviews for policyholders regarding the comprehensiveness and appropriateness of their coverage and suggested insurance policy enhancements.

Mary Jane's insurance litigation practice includes coverage opinions and acting for corporate policyholders in litigation and arbitrations involving claims under directors and officers liability, fiduciary liability, all risk property, boiler and machinery, crime, commercial general liability, Builders Risk, and professional errors and omissions policies and financial institution bonds. She also acts as Canadian coverage counsel in connection with cross-border securities class actions.

Mary Jane also has extensive experience in the organization and conduct of forensic and fraud investigations working with leading forensic accountants; the preparation of fidelity bond claims and other insurance claims; preparation of investigative reports; advising senior officers, directors, liquidators and trustees regarding actions for recovery of assets and insurance proceeds; the conduct of subsequent litigation; and liaising with law enforcement agencies and regulators in respect of prosecutions arising out of forensic investigations. She was counsel to the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) Alliance for Excellence in Investigative and Forensic Accounting in connection with their new Standards for Investigative and Forensic Accounting Engagements.

Mary Jane is recognized in The Best Lawyers in Canada 2010 as a leading lawyer in the areas of director and officer liability, insurance law, and legal malpractice law, in Law Business Research's Who's Who Legal: Canada 2010 (product liability), in PLC Cross-border Insurance and Reinsurance Handbook 2010 (insurance - contentious), as well as in The Canadian Legal Lexpert Directory (commercial insurance). She has also been recognized as a leading Canadian product liability lawyer in Law Business Research's The International Who's Who of Product Liability Lawyers (1997 and 2001-2009) and The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers (2006-2010), and in Legal Media Group's Guide to the World's Leading Product Liability Lawyers (2007, 2009 and 2010).

Mary Jane was chair of the National Insurance Law Section of the Canadian Bar Association from August 2000-2001. She is frequently invited to chair or speak at major insurance and commercial litigation conferences and has published extensively on insurance law, indemnification, directors' and officers' liability, product liability, damages and commercial litigation issues (her publications are listed below). She is a member of the Canadian Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the International Bar Association, The Advocates' Society (Ontario), the International Law Association, DRI (Defense Research Institute), the Professional Liability Underwriting Society, and the International Association of Defence Counsel.