Practice Focus
Legislative, Regulatory and Governmental Services, Self-Insurance, Litigation, Franchising and Distribution Services

Biography
Bruce C. Gerrity practices in a variety of areas having significant impact on Maine business policies and issues. Bruce represents businesses statewide and across northern New England. Among the clients he serves are automobile dealerships, heavy-construction equipment dealers, insurance companies, self insurers and state and national trade associations.

Bruce is a native of New Jersey and lives in Manchester, Maine with his wife, Katherine, and their children, Brian, Logan, Devin and Lauren.

Representative Matters

• Represents numerous clients before the Maine Legislature, including the Maine Auto Dealers Association, AFLAC, Maine Optometric Association, American Insurance Association, Property Casualty Insurers Association of America, Maine Association of Nurse Anesthetists, Mid Coast Builder's Alliance and New England Financial Services Association.
• Represents clients before State administrative agencies, including the Bureau of Insurance, Bureau of Banking, Office of Consumer Credit Protection, Office of Securities, the Bureaus of Taxation and Transportation, the Secretary of State, the Department of Environmental Protection, and in appellate actions in Maine courts involving State agency rulings.
• Bruce is one of Maine’s leading advocates in the field of insurance, representing insurance companies, re-insurers, self-insurers, MEWAs and producers before the Bureau of Insurance.
• Maintains an active trial practice in State and Federal courts, representing insurance companies, automobile dealerships, and other businesses and individuals. Bruce also maintains an active appellate practice, having appeared numerous times before the Maine Supreme Court and the First Circuit Court of Appeals. He has represented the pharmaceutical industry in a constitutional challenge to a state price control statute which went to the United States Supreme Court. He also maintains an active plaintiff’s practice.
• Was the primary author of Maine's workers' compensation self-insurance laws and regulations. He created Maine's Self Insurance Guarantee Association statute, the first of its kind in the nation. He has obtained regulatory approval for programs for most groups currently authorized to self-insure workers' compensation. These clients include the Maine Auto Dealers Association, the longest standing private group self-insurer in Maine; the Maine Motor Transport Association; the Distributors and Suppliers Group; the Maine Oil Dealers Association; the Maine Forest Products Group; McDonald's of Maine; and the Maine Manufacturer’s Trust.
• Authored the Maine Statute which allows self-insurers to reinsure Worker’s Compensation exposures. He created the first self-insured reinsurer in Maine.
• Bruce was one of the authors of Maine’s Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements statute. Bruce secured Certificates of Approval for the banking and automobile industries to operate Multiple Employer Welfare Arrangements, the only two entities in Maine which self-insure health insurance on an association wide basis. He also represents other groups both in Maine and Northern New England interested in this health insurance alternative, and is exploring the creation of a multi-state MEWA. Bruce has also authored legislation expanding the availability of MEWA's to groups formed on a geographic, rather than an association basis.
• He is the primary author of several of Maine's franchise laws, including the Automobile Dealer-Manufacturer, Farm Machinery, Power Equipment, Machinery and Appliances, and Recreational Vehicles, Snowmobiles and All-terrain Vehicles franchise laws.  
• Bruce is the primary author of a number of provisions in Maine’s insurance code.

Professional Achievements/Awards
Listed in Woodward/White’s Best Lawyers in America.

Admissions

• Maine; U.S. District Court, District of Maine; U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit; U.S. Court of Appeals Federal Circuit; U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; U.S. Supreme Court
• Member, Maine State and American Bar Associations
• Member, Maine Trial Lawyers Association 
• Member, National Association of Dealer Counsel
• Member, State Government Affairs Council
• Member, American Bar Association's sections on Franchise Law and Administrative Law
• Member, Judicial Selection Committee for Governor John Baldacci
• Member, The East-West Highway Study Commission in Maine
• Former Member, The Continuing Legal Education Committee of the Maine State Bar Association

Education
J.D., College of William and Mary Marshall Wythe School of Law, 1979
B.A., University of Maine, 1976 (Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa; Member of Varsity Basketball Team; also studied at Cornell University)