During my 40-year career in the legal business world, I have had high-level, hands-on experience in many different areas of the legal ecosystem. This has included turns as a civil trial lawyer of “bet the company” cases; BigLaw partner; Founder and Managing Partner of a multi-city national litigation boutique firm; Outside General Counsel to 3 insurance companies; Federally Appointed Receiver of an international aviation parts business with operations on 4 continents; early adapter of legal technology; co-Founder of Clearspire, a groundbreaking “two-company model” law firm/legal service provider; Distinguished Lecturer of Law at Georgetown; Forbes columnist; and speaker.
I am the CEO of LegalMosaic, a repository for my thought leadership content, and a legal consulting business. I am also the Chair of the Advisory Board and Chief Strategy Officer at Elevate Legal Services, a leading legal business managed services company, as well as Advisor to Hotshot, a company that provides digital learning to lawyers.
Trial Lawyer
- Assistant United States Attorney, Civil Division—won 2 DOJ awards for outstanding trial performance
- Tried 57 major civil cases during career
- Lead Counsel in 13 class action lawsuits and numerous MDL cases
- Represented Five Foreign Sovereign Nations including lead trial counsel in Panama litigation versus Manuel Noriega
- Extensive appellate experience including en banc arguments before 11th Circuit and numerous Federal and State Appellate Courts
- Extensive international/multi-border experience including lead counsel in landmark forum non conveniens cases
- Lead Counsel in numerous arbitrations and mediations, both domestic and international
Managing Partner at BigLaw
- Youngest partner at Finley Kumble
- Asked to serve on the Firm’s National Management Committee
Founder of National Boutique litigation firm
- Founder and Managing Partner of multi-city national litigation boutique firm
- Personally represented more than 60 F500 companies as well as 5 foreign sovereign nations
- Significant innovations: Flex time, fixed price billing, virtual law library, and strongly diverse law firm (all before new millennium)
Receiver
- Appointed Permanent Receiver of international aviation parts business by Hon. Richard Owen, U.S.D.C. S.D. N.Y.
- Served for 10 years and repatriated more than $100M
- Oversaw legal operations of company in 4 continents
Outside General Counsel
- Functioned as outside general counsel to 3 excess and surplus lines insurance companies
- Devised innovative outside counsel arrangements (fixed-price portfolio work; reduction of law firms; formulate outside counsel litigation guidelines)
Early adopter of legal technology
- Worked with client, AT&T to create integration between/among 3 offices
- Used T-1 line to create videoconferencing, virtual law library, centralized attendant, etc. (in 1992)
Early Mover in LPO
- Founder of Qualitas Legal Solutions, one of the first to conduct document review overseas utilizing IT and tapping into labor arbitrage
Clearspire
- Co-Founder of groundbreaking two-company law firm/legal service entity regarded as pioneer in law firm/legal delivery system evolution
- Written up in Economist, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Reuters, American Lawyer, and scores of other media sources.
- Co-Architect of Coral, an integrated, web-enabled IT platform
- Principal lawyer participant in architecture of this web-enabled, integrated IT platform
- Managing Director, Clearspire Law
Teaching/Practicum Experience
- Georgetown University Law Center – Appointed Distinguished Lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center.
Devise and teach professional competency courses and provide guidance on career strategies and placement. - Frequent speaker/guest Professor at numerous domestic and international law. Consult with numerous law school deans about the state of the legal marketplace, curriculum change, and employment opportunities.
- Lecturer and advisor to Executive Director, Sheldon Krantz at the DC Affordable Law Firm (joint venture involving Georgetown Law Center, DLA, and Arent Fox to address the “access to justice” crisis).
- Advisor to Founder, Michelle DeStefano at Law Without Walls (University of Miami Law School).
Author
Mark has published more than 150 articles in mainstream legal and business journals around the world. He has a regular column in Forbes after having similar stints at Bloomberg BigLaw Business and Law360. His work also appears regularly in LegalBusiness World and in BizCatalyst 360. His articles can be accessed via the search engine in the “Blog” section of this site.
Representative sites where Mark’s articles appear include:
- Forbes
- The American Lawyer
- The German Bar Association Journal
- China Corporate Legal Affairs Journal
- The Canadian Bar Magazine
- The Solicitors Journal (UK)
- Forbes (France)
- ABA Journal/Practice Journal
- Legal Business World
- ACC Docket
- Stanford Law CodeX
- Law360Books
- “Essays on Legal Delivery”
- “More Essay’s on Legal Delivery”
Speaker and TV Commentator
- Representative Corporate/Provider Speaking Engagements
- Keynote Speaker, 3M Global Legal Alignment Summit
- Keynote Speaker, British Telecom NA
- Keynote Speaker, ABA/Thomson Reuters GC Roundtable Summit
- Keynote Speaker, Deloitte University (Dallas)
- Keynote Speaker, Reinvent Law
- Keynote Speaker, Axiom Life Sciences Summit
- Keynote Speaker, Buying Legal Procurement Conference
- Keynote Speaker, Financial Times (London) Awards Dinner (Fall, 2018)
Representative Law School Speaking Engagements
- Harvard Law School Speaker Series
- Stanford Law School CodeX
- Georgetown University School of Law (Distinguished Lecturer in Law)
- Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law (Fall, 2018)
- University College London Faculty of Laws
- Bucerius Law School (Hamburg, Germany)
- China University of Political Science and Law (Summer, 2018; Beijing)
Representative Global Conferences and Symposia
- Keynote Speaker, German Bar Association Conference (Essen)
- Keynote Speaker, European Union (pending, Spring 2018)
- Dutch Legal Tech (Amsterdam)
- Paris Legal Incubator
- Keynote Speaker, Legal Management Forum (Spain)
- Keynote Speaker, China Legal Conference (Shanghai, summer 2018)
- Keynote Speaker, Association of Independent Law Firm Networks
- Keynote Speaker, College of Law Practice Management/ Georgetown University Global Regulatory Conference
Representative Courses/Programs
- Georgetown University School of Law
- United States Department of Justice
- University of Southern California School of Law
- Bucerius Law School (Germany, Fall 2018)
- European Union Legal Team (Brussels, Spring, 2018)
- Numerous mini-courses and interactive sessions with in-house legal departments, law firms, and legal service providers