Scott Schutte represents businesses and individuals in their most high-profile, high-exposure, and challenging disputes. Scott has tried more than a dozen cases and litigated hundreds of disputes in state and federal courts across the United States and before arbitration panels around the world. While his practice cuts across many industries, geographies, and subject matters, Scott has experience in representing both plaintiffs and defendants in civil litigation, defending companies in consumer class action litigation, and representing policyholders in insurance coverage disputes, in particular. Scott also has an active pro bono practice, including twice obtaining life-changing victories for men whose convictions were overturned through post-conviction petitions.
Scott is known for his ability to work with clients to develop and implement strategies that achieve their business goals, whether that means avoiding problems through pre-dispute counseling, aggressively litigating a case to a negotiated resolution, or trying a case to verdict. His efforts to provide 24/7 support to clients led to his being named a BTI Client Service All-Star in 2022.
Many of Scott’s cases involve the need to coordinate litigation strategy with a client’s public relations and governmental relations considerations. He also is adept at leading or working with teams of lawyers from different law firms on complex, multidimensional problems.
Scott is proud of his active pro bono practice. On two separate occasions, Scott has convinced judges and/or prosecutors that our clients’ convictions were tainted by illegally obtained confessions. In a 2007 landmark victory, Scott convinced a Chicago judge to vacate two murder convictions for a man who had served 24 years in prison, based on allegations that his confessions were the product of torture. And, in 2019, Scott led a team that convinced prosecutors not to oppose our client’s efforts to have his murder conviction vacated after spending almost 30 years in prison. Scott also was part of the team that successfully prosecuted a class action against the State of Missouri for its failure to adequately monitor the use of psychotropic medications on children in the Missouri foster care system, and he has represented defendants in death penalty cases in Illinois and Texas.
Scott also is involved in firm management. He has been the office managing partner of Morgan Lewis’s Chicago office since April 2011; he is a co-leader of the firm’s Class Action Working Group; and he has previously served as the deputy chair of the firm’s litigation practice and on the firm’s Advisory Board.
Class/Mass Action Defense
Civil Litigation
Insurance Coverage
Ranked, Litigation: General Commercial, Illinois, Chambers USA (2024)
Listed, Lawdragon, 500 Leading Litigators in America, Chicago: Complex Litigation, including Class Action, Insurance Recovery (2022, 2025)
Client Service All-Star, BTI Consulting Group (2022)
Named, Modern Healthcare’s “Largest Healthcare Firm” (2016–2021)
Member, Practice Group of the Year, Insurance, Law360 (2020)
Director, Chicago Children's Museum
Member, Chicago-Kent Alumni Board of Advisors
Treasurer, Illinois State University Attorneys Advisory Board
Former Chair, Insurance Law Committee, Chicago Bar Association (2005–2006)
Former Member, Board of Advisors, DePaul University Center for Justice in Capital Cases (2004–2006)
Recognized, Future Star, Benchmark Litigation (2010–2011)
Recognized, Illinois Super Lawyer (2005–2011)
Recipient, 2005 Chicago-Kent Young Alumnae Award
Recommended, The Legal 500 US (2016)