Subodh Chandra:  

Life SUBODH CHANDRA is Distinguished Practitioner in Residence and Adjunct Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University School of Law. His current practice focuses on white-collar-criminal defense, internal investigations, and economic-crime-victims’ advocacy; governmental, business, and employment litigation, including First Amendment and civil-rights matters; appellate advocacy; legal-crisis communications; business and organizational ethics; general-counsel services; and mediation. Previously, as Director of Law of the City of Cleveland, he led the litigation, prosecutorial, and transactional work of a department of 85 lawyers with both criminal and civil divisions. He advised the Mayor and Cleveland City Council and also served as acting mayor in the mayor’s absence. As general counsel of Cleveland, a billion-dollar corporation, Chandra slashed spending on outside counsel by nearly 90% from a high of $7.4 million in 2000 (more than the City of Los Angeles spent that year) to about $850,000 in 2004. He restored the reputation of a department that historically had produced a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, cabinet secretary, founding and managing partners of national law firms, countless judges, and major-corporate general counsels. Under Chandra’s leadership, Cleveland increased its aggressiveness in both defensive and plaintiff litigation, handled large transactional projects in-house, and moved swiftly, through vigorous in-house investigations, to clean up corruption in city government. Chandra also hired and maintained the most racially and ethnically diverse law firm of its size in Ohio. Previously, Chandra was a federal prosecutor of white-collar crimes, and his work resulted in a number of high-profile convictions, for which Chandra received recognition from FBI director Robert Mueller. Before that, Chandra was a business litigator with large firms in both Cleveland and Los Angeles. While with the L.A. firm, Chandra helped advise the cities of Los Angeles and Beverly Hills and their public officials in civil-rights cases arising from alleged police misconduct. Chandra served as special presidential counsel to the head of the American Bar Association (ABA), where he helped establish the ABA’s Commission on Domestic Violence. He also served as an aide to Texas Governor Ann Richards and Oklahoma Governor David Walters, and as Assistant Director for International Affairs for the political organization of then-Ohio Governor Richard F. Celeste. Chandra graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, with honors and distinction, from Stanford University. He was a John Gardner Fellow through Stanford's Haas Center for Public Service. He earned his law degree at the Yale Law School, where he was executive editor of the Yale Law & Policy Review. Active in the Asian-Indian-American community, Subodh Chandra is married to Meena Morey Chandra, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights. They have triplet-infant sons, Akaash, Chéthan, and Karthik. W...Expand for more