Law Firm Overview

Aardema, Whitelaw & Sears-Ewald is located at 5360 Cascade Rd. SE in Grand Rapids. Our geographic territory primarily covers western Michigan, but our insurance clients regularly retain us to cover cases as far north as Cheboygan, as far south as St. Joseph and as far east as Detroit.

AW&S-E, has long focused on defending claims sounding in medical malpractice, product liability, premises liability, auto negligence, legal malpractice and other insurance defense. Ours is a relatively new defense firm, founded in November of 2001. Although our firm is young, our three founding members have over half a century of defense expertise.

The last decade has seen insurance companies merge, consolidate, acquire and be acquired by others. A successful defense firm has to be agile - capable of quickly and effectively implementing new procedures and technologies as required by the clients' changing needs.

At AW&S-E, we have the dexterity to quickly adapt. Our firm size is intentionally small. We have all seen how large firms can have problems with bureaucratic inefficiency. Inexperienced lawyers are sometimes trained at the carriers' expense. Lawyer turn-over can result in cases being handed-off midstream. Substantial overhead encourages higher defense costs. Our small size and modest overhead allow us to remain efficient in our work, flexible in our fee arrangements and able to accommodate your reporting and other needs.

With AW&S-E, the lawyer who tries the case will almost always be the one who developed the defense plan with you at the outset, refined it over time and conducted the important discovery. An inexperienced attorney will never be assigned to your claim, as we employ no inexperienced attorneys.

Our representative clients include ProNational Insurance Company, The Medical Protective Company, Hudson Health, TIG Specialty Insurance Solutions, The SCPIE Companies, Auto-Owners Insurance, Foremost Insurance Group, State Farm Mutual Insurance Company, Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, Spectrum Health, Hastings Mutual Insurance Company, GE ERC, Employers Reinsurance Corporation, Heritage Mutual Insurance Company, Acuity Insurance Company and Zurich NA Insurance Company.

Robert Aardema, Brian Whitelaw and Dolores Sears-Ewald are our founding partners. If you desire more information about our services or our firm, feel free to contact us at 616.575.2060, or via email.

Areas of Practice

• Insurance Defense
• Medical Malpractice Defence

Representative Clients

• ProNational Insurance Company
• The Medical Protective Company
• TIG Specialty Insurance Solutions
• AAOMS National Insurance Company
• The SCPIE Companies
• Auto-Owners Insurance
• Foremost Insurance Group
• State Farm Mutual Insurance Company
• Progressive Casualty Insurance Company
• Spectrum Health
• Hastings Mutual Insurance Company
• GE ERC
• Employers Reinsurance Corporation
• Heritage Mutual Insurance Company

West Practice Categories

Insurance Defense, Medical Malpractice