Jennifer S. Stegmaier

Jennifer Stegmaier is a litigator and counselor with more than 20 years of experience in litigation, trial and appellate matters in state and federal courts throughout the county. Jennifer represents clients in a variety of commercial litigation matters in the financial services industry, including conversion of negotiable instruments; financial institution bonds; life, health and disability insurance; ERISA; fraud, negligence and bad faith claims; and a host of contract disputes. She represents clients in arbitrations, mediation proceedings and settlement conferences, and counsels clients in various regulatory matters in the life, health and disability insurance industry.

Jennifer’s practice is focused on a diverse array of complex commercial disputes involving hospitals, provider networks, managed care organizations, managing general underwriters, and insurance producers and agents. Jennifer has extensive experience defending insurance companies and financial institutions in claims for in-network and out-of-network hospital reimbursements in excess of $40 million, fidelity bond claims seeking coverage in excess of $100 million, and antitrust subpoenas and civil investigative demands from the federal Trade Commission pertaining to hospital mergers. Jennifer counsels and assists health insurance clients in responding to regulatory complaints, market conduct studies and issues arising from the impact of agency bulletins issued by departments of insurance. Jennifer also guides insurance clients in managing internal investigations, conducting employee interviews, and coordinating internal searches for documents and electronically stored information in anticipation of and during the litigation process, and developing best practices regarding the same.

Jennifer also is experienced at representing clients in data privacy class-action litigation and regulatory investigations. She has defended third-party claims brought by individuals throughout the country whose personally identifiable information (PII) or protected health information (PHI) has been compromised in a data security incident. In addition, she has handled numerous investigations by law enforcement and state and federal regulators, including state attorneys general and HHS/OCR for HIPAA violations. Jennifer advises clients on cybersecurity and data privacy breach response following a cybersecurity incident, assesses overall risk and compliance, and helps to remediate cybersecurity issues.

Outside the practice of law, Jennifer is the past president and a former 10-year member of the Board of Directors of the FBI Chicago Citizens Academy Alumni Association, a nonprofit organization separate and distinct from the FBI that supports the mission of the FBI and is designed to promote safe communities through community service and educating community members about law enforcement, with an emphasis on the mission, resources and priorities of the FBI. Jennifer is passionate about combatting sex trafficking and helping victims of this horrific crime. She volunteers with Reclaim13 and Selah Freedom, and was the team leader for the FBI National Citizens Academy Alumni Association’s national campaign to raise awareness and help victims of human trafficking across the county. Jennifer also is a member of a certified therapy dog team and volunteers with children with disabilities and special needs at Ann & Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Misericordia to help improve their health, activities of daily living and quality of life.