Mark serves as a Litigation and Disputes Regional Service Line Leader. As an accomplished trial attorney, the former Chairman of the Judiciary Committee of The Ohio Senate, the Chairman of the Board of a major health care company, and the former Chairman of a major urban political party, Mark is actively sought by clients facing their most difficult litigation, business, and governmental problems. Mark is a creative problem solver and one of the few attorneys equally comfortable in the courtroom, the boardroom, and the public forum.
Mark has a record of success in high-stakes jury trials. In the fall of 2023, Mark defended the lead defendant against felony charges brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, Antitrust Division alleging bid rigging and price fixing contracts issued to the U.S. Army. After a three-week jury trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, Mark secured not guilty verdicts on all charges for his client. Press accounts referred to his closing argument as a “tour de force” and the “final nail in the coffin” of the prosecution’s case. Mark has been recognized as one of Ohio’s top constitutional litigators, with the distinction of representing the Governor of Ohio, the Ohio Secretary of State, the President of the Ohio Senate, and a former Speaker of the Ohio House of Representatives in a variety of high-stakes matters in federal and state courts. Finally, Best Lawyers in America recognized Mark as the Appellate Lawyer of the year in 2021 when he was part of a litigation team that reversed a preliminary injunction in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit with a decision that is now widely cited on the duty to deal with competitors under antitrust laws.
Mark is a former Chairman of the Antitrust Section of the Ohio State Bar Association and specializes in antitrust issues, including both criminal and civil matters. Mark also has substantive experience with shareholder control disputes and complex business litigation, including class actions.
In addition to his litigation practice, Mark is the founder of Shumaker Advisors, the firm’s multistate and federal government affairs practice, and serves as Chairman of Shumaker Advisors Ohio. He has extensive public policy experience, from drafting major pieces of legislation, such as the legislation that created Ohio’s economic development agency JobsOhio, to chairing major statewide efforts, such as the Ohio Military Facilities Commission, National Statuary Hall Commission, and the Ohio General Assembly Auto Revitalization Task Force. He has also served as one of 20 public members of the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission and as one of the State of Ohio’s 18 Presidential Electors in the Electoral College. The Governor of Ohio has named Mark an Ohio Commodore.
Mark is actively engaged in improving the legal profession. U.S. Senators Portman and Brown appointed Mark to serve as a member of the Bipartisan Judicial Advisory Commission to assist the Senators in identifying and screening candidates for vacancies on the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Northern Districts of Ohio. The Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit appointed Mark as one of the three Ohio designates to the Life Member Committee to the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio appointed Mark to a special committee to address reforming judicial elections in Ohio. Mark is an active member of the American Bar Association and Ohio State Bar Association Antitrust Sections, a Lifetime Member of the Sixth Circuit Judicial Conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals, and a member of both the Michigan and Toledo Bar Associations. He is a former board member of the Ohio Access to Justice Foundation. In addition, Mark has recently co-authored two published law review articles on the Ohio Constitution, titled Ohio’s Modern Courts Amendment Must Be Amended: Why and How, 66 Cleveland State Law Review 69 (2017) and The Constitutional Conundrum of Magistrates’ Authority to Act Independently, 52 University of Toledo Law Review 41 (2021).
Mark has also been engaged in the community, serving on a number of boards, including the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museum, National Museum of the Great Lakes, the Ottawa Hills School Foundation, and the Culver Academies Parent Association Board.
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