Scott A. Sinder

Partner

• ssinder@steptoe.com
• vCard
• Washington Office

Scott A. Sinder is a member of the Washington, DC-based law firm Steptoe & Johnson LLP and he is the Chair of the firm’s Government Affairs & Public Policy practice group.  Mr. Sinder also serves as the outside General Counsel for the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers and for the CRE Finance Council.

Mr. Sinder is both a litigator and a legislative advocate.  Mr. Sinder actively represents trade associations and companies on a wide range of issues in state and federal trial and appellate courts, in state legislatures and Congress, and before regulatory agencies.  Current projects include legislative and regulatory work on a wide range of issues affecting insurance agents and brokers including post-enactment regulatory work related to the implementation of the recently enacted Patient Protection &  Affordable Care Act of 2010 and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform & Consumer Protection Act. 

Mr. Sinder also is an experienced commercial and public law litigator.  His work in these areas has included involvement in class action, antitrust, copyright, redistricting and other complex civil litigation cases, including serving as lead counsel in a series of successful constitutional challenges the Council asserted against state “countersignature” laws.  He is a member of the bars of the United States Supreme Court and of numerous United States district and appellate courts, as well as in the District of Columbia and Colorado.  Mr. Sinder received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1988, his M.P.P. from the University of Michigan Institute of Public Policy Studies in 1987 and his A.B. from the University of Michigan in 1984.

Representative Matters

• Lead counsel on a series of Constitutional challenges brought by The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers against state insurance broker laws that discriminate against non-residents. He recently achieved a significant victory in this six year legal battle in which the Ninth Circuit declared Nevada’s countersignature laws unconstitutional.
• Lead counsel on behalf of a coalition of insurance agent trade associations in litigation against the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over preemption determinations in the First, Fourth, and Sixth Circuits.
• Lead counsel for a coalition of insurance agent associations in IIAA v. Hawke, a case in which the DC Circuit overturned an Office of the Comptroller of the Currency opinion granting national banks the incidental power to sell crop insurance.
• Co-counsel for a coalition of insurance agent associations on the 1996 Supreme Court case Barnett Bank of Marion Co, N.A. v. Nelson.
• Co-counsel for the Florida House of Representatives on the 1993 Supreme Court redistricting case Wetherall v. DeGrandy.

Noteworthy

• Ranked for Nationwide: Government: Government Relations in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Business Lawyers (2011)
• General Counsel for the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers
• General Counsel for the Commercial Mortgage Securities Association.
• Served as the Deputy General Counsel for Delegate Selection and other senior roles for the Kerry for President Campaign.
• Author of the Legal Ease column of Leader’s Edge magazine, a cutting-edge, award-winning publication on the insurance industry.
  

Select News & Events

• Steptoe Involved in Three of The Hill’s ‘Top 10 Lobbying Victories of 2011’
• Risk & Insurance Quotes Scott Sinder on Excess-Lines Premium-Tax Issue
• “US and Global Insurance Regulation: Solvency and Systemic Risk Developments,” American Insurance Association, May 25, 2011
• HotelNewsNow.com Covers Steptoe Hospitality Webinar
• Hospitality Webinar: Employment/Labor Issues, April 7, 2011, (A Steptoe-Sponsored Event)
• Steptoe Receives 18 Practice, 56 Individual Mentions in Chambers USA 2011
• Business Insurance Quotes Scott Sinder on Broker Pay Disclosure Law
• Annual Employment Law Update, February 17, 2011, (A Steptoe-Sponsored Event)
• Scott Sinder and Rhonda Bolton presented webinar on stimulus law changes to HIPAA, March 19, 2009
• Steptoe Adds Legal and Government Relations Talent

Selected Publications

• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Competing Interests
  Winter 2012, Leader's Edge
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - A Barrel of Monkeys
  December 2011, Leader's Edge
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Known Knowns
  November 2011
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Bungled Effort
  October 2011, Leader's Edge
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Strange New World
  September 2011, Leader's Edge
• Reinsurance Update
  August 2011
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Independence Day
  July 2011, Leader's Edge
• Legal Ease: Plain Talk on Legal Topics - Carrier Living Wills
  June 2011, Leader's Edge

More Publications »

Professional Affiliations

• Foundation to Eradicate Duchennes, General Counsel and Board Member since 2002