Mark F Hamilton

Partner | Basking Ridge, United States
Get in touch

Profile

Education

  • Rutgers University School of Law - Newark, JD
  • University of California, Santa Cruz, BA

Mark is a partner in the Basking Ridge office with a practice primarily concentrated on complex and high-profile insurance coverage matters. He regularly provides pre-suit coverage analysis and represents insurers’ interests in litigated disputes in state and federal courts and foreign and domestic insurance arbitrations. These matters involve a broad spectrum of commercial general liability, employers’ liability, public entity/municipal liability, and professional and directors and officers liability claims under various standard domestic, Bermuda-form and manuscript policies. Mark also advises reinsurers with respect to disputed claims involving complex facultative and treaty reinsurance programs. Within the firm, he serves as head of Kennedys’ attorney recruiting and hiring operations in the United States and sits on various management committees.   

Prior to, and during his legal education, Mark enjoyed a career in the securities industry with several NYSE member firms. He has previously held Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (“FINRA”) Series 7, 9, 10, 24, 63 and 65 licenses, as well as the United Kingdom Securities and Futures Authority Compliance License. While in law school he served as judicial extern in the Chambers of the Honorable Barry T. Albin, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey.

Related articles

Article

A legal reality check on sports-related concussion

04/06/2019

View more

Qualifications and admissions

  • New Jersey
  • New York

Work highlights

  • Counsel for certain primary and excess insurers of various major professional and amateur sports organizations, including the NFL, NHL, WWE, NCAA, NCAA member conferences and schools, in both ongoing declaratory judgment litigation (and non-litigation matters) with respect to defense and indemnity claims arising out of the multitude of class action and individual concussion/neuro-cognitive impairment lawsuits.
  • Counsel to three separate syndicates of London underwriters in connection with their respective quota share participation in certain layers of a comprehensive excess insurance program issued to the Office of the Commissioner of Major League Baseball and the exposure from class action lawsuits filed on behalf of thousands of former minor league players alleging pervasive violations of various US trade, competition and labor laws.
  • Counsel for US insurer in connection with its contractual agreement to reinsure a Bermuda-form-based general liability insurance program originally written by captive insurers of a large construction organization, including representing the insured (and coordinating Bermuda and London co-counsel on trans-jurisdictional issues) in dispute arbitrated through completion of a three week proceeding before a Bermuda insurance tribunal.
  • Counsel to certain Bermuda and London-based excess insurers of joint venture participant sued for catastrophic property, environmental, and personal injury damages associated with the failure of the Fundão Tailings Dam in Brazil.
  • Counsel for London reinsurer with respect to disputed claim by underwriters of original motion picture a production loss contingency program arising out of an on-set injury to major film star performing a stunt, and the resultant 14-week production shutdown and extensive corresponding production loss/extra expenses paid by reinsured.
  • Counsel for first-part property insurer with respect to novel claim arising out of alleged contamination of building caused by habitual methamphetamine use by a tenant’s employee in litigated matter of first impression in the federal court in the District of Montana and 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
  • Counsel for primary and excess insurer in connection with declaratory judgment litigation in multiple venues regarding availability of insurance coverage for national class action claims associated with alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (47 U.S.C. § 227 et seq.).

Presentations and publications

  • “Excess insurance policies – ‘Follow form’ and ‘claims made’ policy,” In-House Client Training (October 2023)
  • “The State of Bad Faith in California, Washington, Florida, Georgia and Missouri,” In-House Client Training (May 2022)
  • Co-author, "A Legal Reality Check on Sports-Related Concussion," published for Kennedys (June 2019)

Services

Sectors