Mark began his career as a Labor and Employment associate at Barnes & Thornburg, where he spent five years representing employers before joining JD Finish Line. Over the next two decades, he rose to General Counsel, building and leading the company’s entire legal function and, for five years, its HR organization as well. He returned to Barnes & Thornburg following the completion of JD Sports’ integration of its North American operations, bringing the perspective of a client who sat on the other side of the table.

Mark’s practice centers on labor and employment law, where his in-house background translates directly into value for clients. With responsibility for Finish Line’s workforce across high-stakes jurisdictions including California and New York, he counseled senior leadership on wage and hour compliance, discrimination and harassment investigations, leave administration, employee relations, and employment litigation — all while translating complex legal requirements into workable business solutions that enabled operational flexibility without compromising compliance.

As General Counsel, Mark oversaw the full range of legal needs that define modern retail: employment and HR matters, marketing and advertising compliance, intellectual property, e-commerce and data privacy, supply chain and vendor contracts, consumer protection, data security incident response, M&A due diligence, enterprise risk management, ESG and environmental compliance, and corporate governance. He managed more than 1,000 contracts annually and built Finish Line’s first Legal Operations function to improve efficiency, manage outside counsel spending, and align legal strategy with business objectives. He also led the integration of acquired brands DTLR and Shoe Palace into the broader JD Sports legal structure.

Retail clients benefit from counsel who understands not just the law, but the operational realities of the industry — managing dispersed hourly workforces, navigating multi-state compliance, handling high-volume consumer transactions, efficiently allocating legal resources, and balancing speed-to-market with legal risk. Mark has lived those challenges firsthand and brings that breadth and holistic perspective to every client relationship.

Mark is particularly well-suited to serve as outside general counsel for retail, consumer, and other operationally complex organizations. He understands how employment decisions intersect with consumer-facing operations, how vendor relationships create compliance obligations, and how technology investments generate downstream legal consequences — because he managed those interdependencies for two decades.