Scott M. Seaman

Practice Areas

Scott Seaman is a commercial litigator and trial lawyer with more than 37 years of experience. Scott is widely regarded as one of the leading attorneys in the United States representing insurers and reinsurers in property and casualty matters. He is known for employing his deep knowledge of the law and insurance industry, strategic thinking, and honed trial and appellate advocacy to produce creative solutions and outstanding results for clients. Clients regularly turn to Scott and his team for counsel and representation in challenging and high-stakes insurance and business matters.

Scott has a long track record of successfully representing companies before trial courts, appellate courts, and arbitration panels across the country in a variety of cases and matters involving general liability coverage (primary, umbrella, and excess), professional liability coverage, directors and officers liability insurance, first-party property coverage, bad faith and extra-contractual matters, fee disputes, and facultative and treaty reinsurance contracts. He has served as national coverage counsel as well as trial and appellate counsel.

He also advises and represents companies on cyber, data breach, IoT, nanotechnology, gig economy, viruses and pandemics, representations and warranties and transactional insurance, social unrest, climate change, and other emerging issues, as well as a wide-range of case-specific and portfolio issues.

Scott also has handled a variety of challenging international, professional liability, health/life science, director and officer liability, tort and product liability, and business and commercial cases.

Scott is co-chair of the firm's global Insurance Services Practice Group and serves on the firm's Executive Committee. He is one of the attorneys spearheading the strategic alliance between Hinshaw and RPC in London, Singapore, and Hong Kong to transform the delivery of legal services in the global insurance market. Scott is also lead for Global Access Lawyers, an alliance of leading, worldwide law firms with gravitas representing members of the insurance and financial services industries.

Scott was named to the inaugural list of Midwest Trailblazers by The American Lawyer magazine. The list recognizes 50 professionals from 12 Midwestern states "who have moved the needle in the legal industry" and "are truly agents of change." He was selected for his "high-profile, complex insurance coverage cases nationwide, which resulted in precedent setting rulings that have altered insurance law." He was named to Crain's Chicago Business 2024 Notable Leaders in Accounting, Consulting & Law and to Crain’s Chicago Business 2025 Notable Litigators & Trial Lawyers.

Scott has had the privilege of working with some of the most dedicated and talented senior management, legal counsel, and insurance and reinsurance claims and litigation professionals in the world and of serving as counsel in precedent-setting cases involving some of the most challenging contemporary coverage and reinsurance issues confronting the insurance industry.

Career

Prior to joining Hinshaw, Scott was a partner in a litigation firm headquartered in Chicago, where he served as chairman of that firm's national insurance coverage litigation and counseling practice.

Scott began his legal career at the international firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom and was a member of its litigation and products liability and insurance coverage practice groups.

Scott graduated first in his law school class where he served as an editor of the Law Journal. He was a recipient of the Illinois Lawyers Auxiliary Scholarship, the Loyola Leadership and Service Award, the Chief Justice Roger B. Taney Award, the Judge John C. Hayes Award, the Thomas L. Owens Award, and the Judge John V. McCormack Award.

Professional Memberships

ARIAS US, Member

Claims and Litigation Management Alliance, Co-Chair, Reinsurance Runoff Advisory Board

American Bar Association, Member

Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Section, Member and past Vice-Chair

Litigation Section, Member

Litigation Section Business Interruption Insurance Subcommittee, past Co-Chair

DRI, Member

Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee, Member

Insurance Committee, Member

Commercial Litigation Committee, Member

International Law Committee, Member

Climate Change Litigation Task Force, Member

Business Torts SLG, Member

Professional Liability Underwriting Society

Trial Law Institute, Member

Diversity Law Institute, Member

American College of Coverage Counsel, Founding Fellow

American Bar Foundation, Fellow

Litigation Counsel of America, Fellow

Order of Veritas, Barrister

Order of Certus, Advocate

Publications

Scott is a prolific author, writing on substantive legal issues and insurance and reinsurance topics as well as litigation practice matters. His writings have been recognized by courts, parties, and commentators, and they have been cited by the highest courts in Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, South Carolina, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and by other state and federal appellate and trial courts across the country.

His two volume treatise, Allocation of Losses in Complex Insurance Claims (13th Ed Thomson Reuters 2025), addresses many of the important issues driving contemporary insurance claims and coverage litigation and reinsurance cessions and arbitrations.

Other books and chapters authored and co-authored include:

"Duty to Defend: A Fifty State Survey" (Hinshaw 2023)

"50 State Survey: Requirements to Communicate with Insureds for Property and Casualty Claims: Volume VI" (Hinshaw 2021)

"50 State Survey: Workers' Compensation Law Exclusivity, Exceptions, Third Party Action Over Claims & COVID-19" (Hinshaw 2020)

"Wrongful Death and Survival Actions" (7th Ed. IICLE 2023) (General Editor and Contributing Author Chapters 1, 2, 3, 5, and 7)

"An Insurance Coverage & Reinsurance Primer On Coronavirus (COVID-19) Claims" (Hinshaw 2020)

"A Primer on Reinsurance Law & Principles" (Hinshaw 2016)

"Chapter 6 Pertinent Reinsurance Contract Provisions," Reinsurance Professional's Deskbook - A Practical Guide (2019 – 2020 Ed. Thomson Reuters)

"Chapter 17 Excess Insurance Coverage," Environmental Liability & Insurance Recovery (ABA 2012)

Recent articles include:

"The Ultimate Social Inflation Survival Guide: Containing Rising Claims Costs In A World Rife With Economic Inflation, Litigation Funding, Nuclear Verdicts, And Anti-Corporate Sentiment," Mealey’s Asbestos Report: Vol. 40, # 6, April 23, 2025)

"Sustainability Recalibration: What Insurers And Policyholders Should Know About ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance Considerations) Under Trump 2.0, Part 1," published in Mealey’s Litigation Report: Insurance March 5, 2025)

"Sustainability Recalibration: What Insurers And Policyholders Should Know About ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance Considerations) Under Trump 2.0, Part 2," published in Mealey’s Litigation Report: Insurance March 12, 2025;

"2024 Key Insurance Decisions, Trends, & Developments & A Look Ahead To 2025," published in Mealey’s Litigation Report: Insurance December 4, 2024

"A Primer On PFAS/Forever Chemical Claims: Regulation, Litigation, Large Losses & Insurance Coverage Issues," Mealey's Pollution Liability Report, Vol. 37, #8, (May 2024)

"Fire & Rain: 2023 Key Decisions & Developments Impacting the Wide World of Insurance," Mealey’s Litigation Reports (2023)

"A Review of Emerging Trends In Mergers & Acquisitions and Representations & Warranties Insurance," Mealey's Litigation Report: Emerging Insurance Disputes (April 2021)

"Insurance & Reinsurance – USA Trends and Developments," Chambers and Partners Global Practice Guides (February 2021)

"2020 Cyber And Privacy Coverage – A Year In Review," Mealey's Litigation Report: Emerging Insurance Disputes (January 2021)

"Commercial Property Policies Are Hardly A Panacea For COVID-19 Business Interruption Losses," Mealey's Litigation Report: Catastrophic Loss (September 2020)

"Property Coverage For Riot-Related Claims Is Not Automatic," Law360 (June 2020)

"An Overview Of COVID-19 Related Legislative, Regulatory, & Litigation Activity & The Potential Impact On Insurer Solvency," Mealey's Litigation Report: Insurance Insolvency, (April 2020)

"The Legal Trends Behind 'Social Inflation' in Insurance," Law360 (Feb. 2020)

Personal

Scott served on the National Board of Selectors Jefferson Awards for Public Service (Nobel Prize for public and community service) and helped lead a high school service and leadership program.

Scott also served as Co-Chair of Jefferson Awards Chicago.

He was a member of a delegation that presented reports to the White House and the U.S. Senate on the state of volunteering in America.

He was a co-founder of the Chicago Chapter of the Lymphoma Research Foundation.

Lymphoma Research Foundation, Inaugural Tribute Award Recipient.

American Forum on Lymphoma in Los Angeles, Keynote speaker, North American Forum.

Hippocratic Cancer Research Foundation, Founding Board Member, Executive Board Member.

Work Highlights

An asbestos reinsurance case resulting in a landmark allocation ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

An asbestos and environmental coverage action resulting in a key number of occurrences ruling by New York's highest court.

A Delaware Supreme Court decision enforcing tobacco exclusions.

Multiple non-products coverage and asbestos bankruptcy matters.

A Florida appellate court decision affirming a ruling that defective construction is not an "occurrence."

A lead paint insurance coverage action in California affirmed on appeal.

A reversal of an $11 million bad faith/punitive damages verdict in California.

An Illinois environmental coverage action resulting in a favorable late notice ruling and a Supreme Court decision finding that insurers' due process rights were violated.

A coverage action in the Northern District of Illinois and Seventh Circuit resulting in favorable rulings on expert and pollution exclusion issues.

Health care class action

Rights and obligations in connection with a multi-billion dollar reinsurance pooling arrangement