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Biography

Dubs Herschlip is a Washington-based attorney with over 24 years of experience helping business and estate clients in the tech, financial, and real estate industries navigate complex legal challenges. Acting as a strategic business partner and advisor to his clients, Dubs offers guidance across navigating business formation, management, and litigation issues by offering corporate counsel, intellectual property, asset protection, and legacy planning services.

  • In his business law practice, Dubs has worked closely with entrepreneurs, startups, cities..., nonprofits and established companies . From entity formation and contract negotiation to regulatory compliance and business transactions, Dubs provides strategic guidance to help businesses succeed and grow. He takes a proactive approach to identifying and mitigating potential issues, ensuring that his clients are well-equipped to navigate the challenges of today’s business landscape. Committed to excellence in his practice, Dubs is known for his attention to detail, his proactive approach to problem-solving, and his unwavering dedication to his clients’ success. He takes pride in building long-lasting relationships based on trust, integrity, and mutual respect, and he looks forward to serving the legal needs of the Washington community for years to come.
  • After experiencing the loss of his own father and the challenges that ensued, Dubs redirected his legal focus towards estate planning, driven by a profound desire to help families navigate the complexities of preserving assets and ensuring their loved ones’ legacies are protected. Dubs is dedicated to helping individuals and families protect their assets, preserve their legacies, and plan for the future. Whether drafting wills, trusts, or powers of attorney, Dubs takes the time to understand each client’s unique circumstances and develop personalized estate plans that reflect their wishes and values. He strives to make the estate planning process as seamless and stress-free as possible, guiding clients through every step with care and compassion. Dubs also has comprehensive experience in guiding clients through the complexities of probate disputes and litigation with a focus on achieving favorable resolutions.
  • Drawing on his experience as both an attorney and arbitrator, Dubs brings a unique perspective to his practice. He understands the challenges people face on a daily basis and strives to be compassionate, straightforward, and efficient in isolating legal issues and finding viable solutions for people in need. The broad scope of his legal practice allows him to be proactive in identifying and mitigating potential issues to provide a comprehensive, holistic, well-rounded product for his clients.
  • Dubs understands the intricacies of transactional law, the nuances of the court system, and the importance of effective dispute resolution. Whether drafting contracts, navigating complex legal issues, or representing clients in court, he is committed to delivering practical solutions tailored to each client’s goals and objectives.
  • Dubs is a graduate of the University of Washington (“UW”) School of Law where he double-course-loaded every quarter to learn as much as he could to help businesses and clients deal with their legal issues.  Eventually, UW named their mascot after Dubs. 

Experience

  • Small Businesses:
    • Helped form 1,000’s of small businesses and advise them on limiting liability, asset protection, purchases, sales, banking, credit, insurance, contracts, risk-assessment, insurance disputes, litigation, licensing and regulatory compliance, employment law, privacy laws, relations between owners, and business dissolutions.  
    • Privacy and HIPAA compliance for websites, government contracts and healthcare organizations 
    • Mid-size business ($1,000,000-50,000,000) investment, purchase, sale and due diligence 
    • Reviewing, revising and advising on commercial leases, franchise agreements, loans, investments and corporate forms 
    • Counseling on best practices to limit liability 
    • Compliance with Washington business licensing laws 
    • Counseling on relations between owners 
    • Advising on best practices in financing businesses (taking money out of the business and putting money into the business) 
    • Advising on best practices, regulations and pit falls with employees or independent contractors 
    • International manufacturing contracting, intellectual property protection and litigation. 
    • Insurance coverage and bad faith (under Washington’s Insurance Fair Conduct Act) successes in state and federal court    
    • Drafting and litigating software licensing and intellectual property rights 
    • Dubs’ focus on avoiding litigation for his clients and assisting individuals and entities in setting up their businesses and estates, together with appropriate insurance coverage for their business and estate planning needs. I have also worked with individuals to set up insurance brokerages and with insurance brokers to conceptualize, develop, and price new business-risk insurance products.   
    • Dubs has worked with many businesses on their insurance coverage claims, some of which have gone to court. For example: Houston Casualty Company v. Awashington, LLC, et al., 2:24-cv-01647-BAT. 
  • Real Estate: 
    • Dubs has drafted land use opinions for 26 cities and counties in Washington. 
    • Dubs has advised cities on multi-million-dollar public works construction projects. 
    • Dubs has advised buyers and sellers through due diligence and dispute resolution of real property purchases, sales and investments. 
    • Dubs has litigated most sorts of real property issues including construction defects, contracts disputes, liens, boundary disputes, adverse possession, trespass, timber trespass, easements, clouded title and other cases including co-counseling a successful arbitration in defense of a builder in a  $56,000,000 construction contract claim by the developer that we reduced to $0 in liability for the builder.  
  • Estates: 
    • Dubs has experience drafting estate plans with wills, living trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, transfer on death deeds, beneficiary designations and other techniques for clients including legacy plans for complex or high net worth estates. 
    • Dubs offers transition planning for entrepreneurs and business owners. 
    • Dubs advises executors, personal representatives and trustees in the administration of estates and trusts and fulfillment of their duties. 
    • Dubs resolves disputes with probates and non-probate assets including contested wills, beneficiary designations, entitlement to life insurance proceeds, estate distributions, creditor claims, TEDRA claims, and CIR claims in state and federal court. 
  • Government: 
    • Dubs has experience working for the State of Oregon Department of Justice Labor Department, the City of Seattle as its Land Use Code Enforcement Officer, and the City of Everett, as well as individuals, government contractors and non-profit organizations in grant compliance, land use development and regulation, employment law, and other issues. 
  • Litigation: 
    • Dubs has jury and bench trial experience in state and federal trial and appellate courts in and arising from Washington, as well as administrative tribunals and arbitrations. 
  • Insurance Coverage Litigation: I 
    • Dubs was lead counsel on a case representing a family in their homeowner’s insurance and umbrella insurance coverage claims after their son allegedly set fire to an elementary school dumpster that spread causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages. The parents’ insurance denied coverage, and they were looking at losing everything. Dubs fought their insurance coverage issues for them and won coverage for the entire loss arising from their minor child’s misconduct by overcoming the insurer’s defense of exclusions for intentional wrongful acts. Dubs also represented a client in an interpretation of an insurance policy’s beneficiary designations in an insurance interpleader case in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington.  Std. Ins. Co. v. Nelson, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 36197, *1, 2007 WL 1453099. 
    • Dubs succeeded on an accidental death claim against a life insurance policy provided by Zurich American Insurance Company by overcoming their denial of life insurance coverage in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Washington against the decedent’s life insurance provider for the benefit of decedent’s spouse. Hawthorne v. Zurich Am. Ins. Co., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44385 (2007). 
    • Dubs’ insurance coverage practice with employers and firms, defending and winning insurance cases both inside and outside of court included success in an insurance coverage contest arising from a claim of theft of personal property against my client’s homeowner’s insurance coverage in a case against Lloyd’s of London in King County Superior Court case number 12-2-18792-4 SEA, Crawford vs. Those Certain Underwriters At Lloyds Of London et al.   
    • Dubs represented a paralegal of a personal injury law firm against claims by an insurance company, Allstate Insurance Co., alleging that the law firm had committed fraud and ethical violations in relation to insurance claims filed with Allstate, which claims against my client were eventually settled outside of court. See Allstate Ins. Co. v. Tacoma Therapy, Inc., 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 52934, 2014 WL 1494100; and see Allstate Ins. Co. v. Tacoma Therapy, Inc., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 126399 (W.D. Wash., Sept. 4, 2013).  
    • Dubs was also successful in a six-day jury trial for violations of Washington’s Insurance Fair Conduct Act against the largest insurer in America, State Farm, in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, O’Neal v. State Farm, No. 2:23-cv-00232-KKE and other insurance coverage cases, including  Houston Casualty Company v. Awashington, LLC, et al, 2:24-cv-01647-BAT.  

Education

  • Seattle Film Institute Certificate
  • The Defenders’ Association (Seattle) Investigator Program graduate
  • University of Washington School of Law
  • Whitman College
  • Willamette University School of Law

Admissions

State
  • Washington
Court
  • U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
  • U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington
  • Washington State Courts

Outside of Work

  • Sustainable forms of Gardening and Seagardening 
  • Water protector-former water quality monitoring project manager
  • Spending time with my family 
  • Eating good vegetarian food 
  • Standup paddle boarding 
  • Adventuring outdoors 

Articles & Blogs from Dubs Herschlip

Thought Leadership
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Intern Program

As part of our effort to recruit, develop and retail the best and brightest attorneys, Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig offers a summer intern program for promising law school students who are looking to work as part of an innovative and incredibly successful team. With a global team of lawyers, selected candidates are able to work on high level projects in a collaborative space.

Paralegals and Legal Support Staff

At Dunlap Bennett & Ludwig, our team of paralegals and staff work together collaboratively along side our attorneys toward a common goal. We have created a positive work environment where our paralegals and legal assistants work to successfully reach firm-wide goals and support each other to combine individual strengths to enhance team performance. They regularly assist our attorneys with organizing and maintaining files, conducting legal research, and preparing documents.