Stacy Monahan Tucker Selected to 2026 Washington Super Lawyers List for Insurance Coverage & Employee Benefits

Stacy Monahan Tucker, ERISA attorney and founder of Monahan Tucker Law, has been selected to the 2026 Washington Super Lawyers list, a distinction reserved for only 5% of attorneys in the state.  Earning a place on the list requires more than a strong reputation. Super Lawyers does not accept self-nominations and no attorney can buy a spot. Lawyers put forward the names of attorneys whose work they have personally watched, a research team scores every candidate against 12 measures of professional achievement, and a blue ribbon panel of attorneys from the same practice area rates the remaining candidates.

For Stacy, the recognition reflects a career shaped by seeing insurance disputes from both sides. She spent the first part of her career representing insurance companies in some of the country’s most complex and high-stakes disability and life insurance litigation. She learned how insurers evaluate claims, build their defenses, and fight cases when millions of dollars are on the line. Today, she puts that experience to work as a disability insurance attorney for the people those companies are fighting against.

A Disability Insurance Lawyer With a Growing List of Accolades

The Super Lawyers selection adds to a growing list of honors for Stacy:

• Best Lawyers named her to its 2025 Washington list for Insurance Litigation
• Attorney Intel placed her among the Top 25 Attorneys in Washington State in 2023
• She holds an AV Preeminent peer-review rating through Martindale-Hubbell, the highest distinction the organization awards.

Each of these honors traces back to the same source, which is casework. Peer-reviewed ratings reflect how other lawyers assess the way a disability insurance attorney handles a file, argues a record, and holds up in front of a judge.

A Focus on ERISA and Individual Disability Insurance Claims

Stacy has practiced in ERISA law for more than 25 years, handling complex disability and life insurance benefit disputes throughout the Ninth Circuit. Her caseload covers both sides of the disability insurance world, along with life insurance and accidental death and dismemberment claims.

The distinction between those two sides matters more than most people realize until a disability claim is denied. Coverage that comes through an employer is usually governed by ERISA, a federal law with its own deadlines, its own appeal requirements, and its own limits on what evidence a court will consider. A policy purchased individually falls outside ERISA and follows state law instead. The two paths look nothing alike once a denial letter arrives, and the wrong assumption early on can cost a claimant the record they need later. As an ERISA disability lawyer, Stacy handles claims under both.

Her background gives the firm an advantage that has proven to be invaluable time and time again. Before she began representing insureds, Stacy defended insurance companies in their most complicated and expensive disability and life insurance litigation at some of the best-known firms in the country. She has seen the internal logic behind a denial from the inside, which shapes how she approaches an appeal record as a disability insurance lawyer for the clients she represents now.

Those clients are professionals with meaningful income at stake, who have never needed a disability insurance lawyer before. Doctors, lawyers, corporate executives, and business owners come to the firm after a long-term disability claim is denied or benefits are cut off, often under a policy provided through an employer. Stacy has secured settlements totaling tens of millions of dollars on behalf of her clients. In Gustafson-Feis v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., she prevailed on summary judgment in a Western District of Washington case turning on how a pre-existing condition limitation applied. In Wolf v. Life Insurance Co. of North America, she won a wrongful denial case at the district court level and the Ninth Circuit upheld the result on appeal.

Licensed Across Five Western States

Geography works differently in this practice area than clients expect. Stacy represents professionals nationwide who live on the West Coast or who work for corporations headquartered there. Someone living in another state can still have a claim that belongs in a West Coast court, depending on where the employer sits and where the policy was issued. That makes admission and jurisdiction the deciding factors when choosing an ERISA attorney. The firm keeps a Washington office in the Woodinville area outside Seattle and serves clients throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.

More specifically, Monahan Tucker Law handles ERISA disability appeals and litigation across the Ninth Circuit. That reach matters for an ERISA disability lawyer. Stacy is admitted to practice in:

• Washington
• California
• Oregon
• Nevada
• Arizona
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Several federal district courts in California and Washington
• Supreme Court of the United States

Put Decades of Disability Insurance Experience to Work for You

An insurer’s denial letter is not the end of the process. It starts a clock, and what goes into the administrative record during the appeal window often determines what a court is allowed to see if the claim ends up in litigation. An ERISA disability lawyer can help build that record before the window closes.

Stacy’s experience on both sides of disability insurance disputes gives clients a unique and invaluable advantage. She knows the insurance companies intimately from first-hand experience. She knows how they evaluate claims, defend denials, and look for weaknesses, and she uses that insight to build stronger appeals and win cases against them.

If your long-term disability claim was denied or your benefits were terminated, put Monahan Tucker Law on your side. Every client works directly with a disability insurance attorney rather than being routed through a case manager. Learn more about the firm’s disability insurance litigation practice, or contact the firm to schedule a consultation and we’ll review your denial with you.