Insurance fair conduct act isaac ruiz

Isaac is the founder and managing attorney of Ruiz & Smart. His mission as a lawyer is to “fight like hell for justice on behalf of real people, often against large, well-funded, and dogged opponents.”

He has helped clients recover many millions of dollars while giving thousands of hours back in service to the community.

Isaac has been in practice for 22 years. He has worked with the same legal team on his cases—with valuable additions along the way—since 2008. He is a member of various bar associations, including the Washington State Bar Association and the King County Bar Association.

Isaac has been named to the “Super Lawyers” Washington list by Thomson-Reuters every year since 2015. He has been named to the list of “Top 100” Super Lawyers in Washington from 2020 through 2022.

As a child, Isaac knew he wanted to be a lawyer from watching L.A. Law on TV.

The son of Mexican immigrants (Isaac’s dad was a farm laborer, his mom a seamstress at a Levis factory), Isaac excelled in school from a young age. Think of debate club, first chair in band, stage manager for the one-act play, student of the year, DAR good citizens award, American Legion Boys State, and you’ll get the idea. Meanwhile, Isaac also worked in farm fields after school and sold watermelons on the side of the road over summer vacations.

Growing up, Isaac’s house was next door to a convent, two doors down from his church, across the street from his elementary school, a block away from the public library, and two blocks away from his grandparents’ house. Isaac is still a big believer in small town values.

Isaac was the first person in his family to graduate from college—the University of Texas at Austin in 1996. He then went on to earn his law degree from Notre Dame Law School in 2000. There, he graded onto the Law Review and graduated magna cum laude. After law school, Isaac served as a law clerk for the Honorable Carlos F. Lucero for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit in Denver from 2000 to 2002. As a younger lawyer, Isaac worked for major law firms such as Perkins Coie.

Isaac believes he and his team are doing their best work at Ruiz & Smart. If you’ve browsed this website, you already know many of the cases handled by Ruiz & Smart challenge the business practices of insurance companies. Though some consider insurance boring—and most law students leave law school without having learned much about it—the attorneys at Ruiz & Smart know that the wellbeing of individuals, families, and entire communities depends in large part on insurance companies living up to their promises and their legal responsibilities.

Although often unrecognized, there is a clear social-justice imperative to holding insurance companies accountable. The law—which is highly protective of consumers in most insurance matters—reflects this importance. For example:

Isaac and the team also represent clients in important cases beyond insurance—although, to be sure, there are usually insurance companies or their close cousins, “risk pools,” lurking in the background, whether seen or unseen. Isaac and his team have successfully:

These are just a few examples, meant to illustrate the types and breadth of cases.

Isaac still believes in given back to the community. He has:

Notable Cases

Publications and Presentations