Subodh Chandra

2005 - Current

The Chandra Law Firm LLC

Managing Partner

Practice includes high-profile and complex civil-rights, constitutional, voting rights, employment, and business civil trial-and-appellate litigation; white-collar-criminal defense; professional ethics and licensing; and internal investigations. Successfully defended healthcare, mortgage-fraud, telecommunications-fraud, and telemarketing-fraud allegations. Multimillion-dollar trial verdicts and settlements. Emphasis on client crisis-communications strategies in matters of public interest.

2002 - 2005

City of Cleveland, Ohio

Director of Law

Served as general counsel of billion-dollar-plus corporation and sometimes as acting mayor. Led turnaround of 85-lawyer law firm with civil and criminal divisions. Counseled mayor; various departments (including nation’s 10th largest public-water utility, largest state public-electric utility, and international airport); and city-council members. Conducted numerous internal-fraud, public corruption, and ethics investigations, resulting in large recoveries to city coffers. Hands-on litigation, prosecutorial, legislative, and transactional work, including civil-rights, employment, and First-Amendment disputes, criminal-charging decisions in police use-of-deadly-force cases, environmental defense of airport expansion, and economic-development projects. Creatively settled Innocence Project’s wrongful-conviction case, Green v. City of Cleveland, now invoked as national model, and Justice Department civil-rights investigations into police use of deadly force and jail conditions. Raised charging standards in criminal division. Served on team preparing City’s homeland-security readiness. Edited all case-dispositive motions and appellate briefs. Developed ethics protocol and served as chief ethics officer. Recruited staff from top firms and corporations, improved morale, and reduced voluntary turnover by two thirds over two years. Slashed outside-counsel spending by 90%. Increased proportion of minority lawyers from 23% to 34% at line, and from 20% to 31% at management levels; raised percentage of criminal-division minority lawyers from zero to a majority.

1999 - 2002

U.S. Department of Justice

Assistant United States Attorney

Prosecuted complex federal economic crimes at trial and appellate levels. Coordinated and oversaw complex, multiple-target investigations with federal and state interagency task force. Prosecuted criminal healthcare fraud and corruption, money laundering, and mail, wire, and bank-fraud schemes. Advocacy, negotiations, and trials resulted in conviction of numerous criminal defendants, and in leading appellate opinions. Special commendations for “demonstrated excellence” from FBI Director Robert Mueller; Cleveland FBI Special Agent in Charge Mark Bullock.

1997 - 1999

Thompson Hine

Associate

Litigated trade-secret, contract, and employment cases in federal and state courts. Recruited clients to firm. Pro bono racial-profiling case.

1996 - 1997

Christensen, Miller, Fink, Jacobs, Glaser, Weil & Shapiro

Associate

Represented entertainment-industry, elected-official, and police-department clients, including motion-picture studios, Los Angeles mayor, city-council members, and Beverly Hills police department, in complex business disputes, libel defense, and misconduct cases.

1994 - 1995

American Bar Association

Special Presidential Counsel

Developed reform initiatives for leader of world’s largest professional organization in civil- and criminal-justice reform, domestic violence, legal-aid preservation, ethics, and human rights.

1991 - 1994

Yale Law School

J.D. (1994) | Law

1985 - 1989

Stanford University

B.A. (1989) | Political Science and Sociology

Honors: Graduated with honors, and distinction in two departments; elected to Phi Beta Kappa, junior year.