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Doug McCray

Doug McCray has been practicing law for over 24 years, and has spent most of that time suing insurance companies. He has turned hundreds of denials and ignored claims into millions of dollars for his clients. Several of his victories have resulted in important opinions by Michigan courts, including:

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  • McNeel v. Farm Bureau (Jury agreed that coverage exists despite Farm Bureau's "vacancy" defense); 
     

  • Johnson v. State Farm (Michigan Court of Appeals rejected State Farm's "statute of limitations" defense); and 
     

  • Smith v. State Farm (Federal Court ruled that policyholder has a right to have the amount of his or her loss decided by a neutral appraisal panel, rather than by the insurance company).

 

Since 2012, he has run McCray Law Office. Unlike many firms, McCray Law Office exclusively represents property owners, never the insurance company.​​

Legal Education
 

Doug began attending the Wayne State University Law School in 1992, while working full time in a biotechnology laboratory. At WSU, he served as a Note and Comment Editor for the Wayne Law Review and was awarded the Ira J. Spoon Award (for outstanding writing on a land use topic). After graduating, Doug earned the second highest score in Michigan on the July 1996 Multistate Bar Exam. 

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Scientific Education and the Role of

"Junk Science" in Insurance Litigation

 

Prior to attending law school, Doug received his B.S. from Central Michigan University in Biology and Psychology, followed by a Masters in Biology (with an emphasis on biochemistry) from Oakland University, graduating with a 3.85 GPA. ​He subsequently spent five years doing biological research, the last three of these running the day-to-day operations of a molecular biology research laboratory.

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Doug's scientific background has been particularly useful in connection with  insurance litigation. Specifically, insurance companies often try to justify claim denials by hiring "expert" witnesses to draft reports indicating (for instance) that fire-losses are caused by arson, that losses are caused by events that are not covered (i.e. "excluded") under the policy (like long-term wear-and-tear or groundwater) or that the loss occurred before the policy began. The reports prepared by these witnesses always seem to favor the insurance company rather than the policyholder.

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Often, these reports are full of results-oriented "junk-science" disguised as real science by well-placed buzz-words. It doesn't take long for someone with a solid scientific background  to recognize junk science for what it is. However, it can be difficult for someone without such a background - even an attorney - to recognize that an "expert" report is based on smoke and mirrors, or to effectively depose the expert who generated it. Because of this, it helps to have an attorney who is scientifically literate. Doug has the technical background necessary to fight and win against the insurance companies and their dubious experts.

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Legal Publications​
 

Other Publications
 

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