Gary Feinerman

Gary Feinerman is a former federal district judge and state solicitor general who represents clients in their highest stakes litigation. He serves as Co-Chair of the Chicago office’s Litigation & Trial Department.

Gary leverages three decades’ experience — including 12 years as district judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, four years as Solicitor General of Illinois, and more than a decade in private practice — to provide sophisticated advocacy and litigation guidance to high-profile clients on:

• Complex commercial disputes
• Consumer and privacy class actions
• Securities and derivative suits
• Product liability suits
• Multidistrict litigation
• White collar criminal matters
• Federal and state constitutional litigation

As a federal district judge, Gary presided over several dozen jury and bench trials, handled a broad array of complex civil and criminal matters, and issued over 1,000 opinions. He heard more than 100 appeals sitting by designation on the US Courts of Appeal for the Seventh and Ninth Circuits, served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Criminal Rules, chaired the Seventh Circuit Civil Jury Instructions Committee, presided over a multidistrict litigation, and served on the Seventh Circuit Judicial Council and the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and Employment Dispute Resolution Plan for the Seventh Circuit.

Before taking the bench, Gary was a litigation partner at another global law firm, where he maintained a broad trial and appellate practice in state and federal court and handled high-stakes commercial, product liability, multidistrict, tax, and constitutional matters. In private practice and as Solicitor General of Illinois, he argued numerous cases before the US Supreme Court, the Seventh Circuit, and the Supreme Court of Illinois. Earlier in his career, Gary served in the US Department of Justice and the Office of the Counsel to the President. After law school, he clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy and Judge Joel Flaum of the Seventh Circuit.

Gary is a member of the American Law Institute, the Chicago Inn of Court, and the Economic Club of Chicago. He serves on Stanford Law School’s Board of Visitors, as a Trustee of the Chicago History Museum, on the Board of the Federal Bar Association’s Chicago Chapter, and on the Board of Managers of Legal Action Chicago. Gary previously served as a Director of Umoja Student Development Corporation, a Trustee of National Louis University, President of the Appellate Lawyers Association, a Fellow of Leadership Greater Chicago, and as a University of Chicago Law School Lecturer in Law.