Mark E. Schneider

Mark Schneider is a partner whose practice focuses on representing businesses, their boards and executives in complex criminal, civil, and administrative investigations, government enforcement proceedings, and related litigation, often in highly regulated industries and international contexts.

Recognized by Chambers as a leading lawyer, Mark's clients include notable multinational companies in the financial services, life sciences, healthcare, and manufacturing industries, as well as private equity sponsors and a diverse array of portfolio companies.

Mark has substantial experience representing clients in matters related to environmental law, securities and commodities regulation, the False Claims Act, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, FDA cGMP regulations, sanctions and export controls, antitrust, trade secret theft, and other complex regulatory issues. Mark also advises clients in evaluating and mitigating compliance risks, including in international markets.

Prior to joining Kirkland, Mark served for a decade at the U.S. Department of Justice. In profiling his work, The National Law Journal cited descriptions of Mark as “exceedingly smart in an understated way” and emphasized his “legal talent and lack of pretension.” An accomplished trial and appellate lawyer, Mark served in senior leadership and supervisory roles at the U.S. Attorney's Office in Chicago, including as Chief of Appeals, Deputy Chief of Financial Crimes and Special Prosecutions, head of the Medicare Fraud Task Force, Criminal Health Care Fraud Coordinator, Food and Drug Administration Coordinator, and Child Exploitation Crimes Coordinator. He tried numerous complex fraud and other cases before juries, and briefed or edited more than 100 appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.

Mark’s international and national security experience included deploying to Baghdad for a year to help to lead civilian Rule of Law efforts throughout Iraq. Later, as Special Attorney to the Attorney General, he prosecuted a former CIA officer for willfully disclosing the identity of a covert officer in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the second such case in U.S. history and one described by the then-CIA Director as “an important victory for our Agency, for our Intelligence Community, and for our country.”

Mark has also taught for five years as adjunct faculty at the University of Chicago Law School. After law school, he clerked for the Honorable Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Prior to studying law, Mark worked as a management consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, Inc., and on the staff of the late U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar.

Mark graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review; Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar; and Indiana University, as a Wells Scholar.