Christopher Clark
Senior Staff Attorney
CONTACT: Midwest Regional Office, 312-663-4413
Christopher Clark is a Senior Staff Attorney in the Midwest Regional Office of Lambda Legal, the oldest and largest national legal organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. His work involves a variety of legal matters, including the legal recognition of same-sex relationships, employment discrimination and family law. Clark has been involved in Lambda Legal's efforts to secure marriage equality for same-sex couples in Iowa and California.
Clark recently represented an indigent transgender woman in her successful effort to persuade the Illinois Supreme Court to order officials in Will County, Illinois to file and consider her motion to change her legal name and her petition for a waiver of the associated filing fees. He is currently representing an Ohio woman in a child custody dispute against her former partner and the sperm donor who are both arguing that the woman is a "legal stranger" to her daughter because she is not the biological parent.
Prior to joining Lambda Legal, Clark worked for over ten years as a commercial litigator in private practice. As a partner at the law firm of Sachnoff & Weaver, Clark represented businesses and individuals in complex commercial disputes involving a wide array of legal issues spanning employment law, securities regulation, intellectual property, contract law and business torts. He is an accomplished trial attorney, having represented clients in bench and jury trials in federal and state courts, as well as numerous mediations, arbitrations and administrative proceedings.
When the Sachnoff firm merged with Reed Smith in 2007, Clark was appointed to the position of deputy leader of the Chicago litigation practice of the combined firm. He also served on the LGBT sub-committee of the firm's diversity committee and actively participated in the recruitment of LGBT attorneys and law students as a member of the firm's recruiting committee. Clark began his legal career as an associate at the law firm of Goldberg Kohn in Chicago.
Clark graduated with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996, where he was the recipient of the Stonewall Scholarship, given to the student most likely to advance the cause of civil rights for LGBT people. He also worked as a volunteer advocate on behalf of the homeless in the law school's Mandel Legal Aid Clinic. Clark received his undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1987.
