As chair of Stradley Ronon’s Nonprofit & Religious Organizations Practice Group, Mark Chopko advises nonprofit and religious organizations in various matters including structural, business, governance, regulatory and general litigation. A major emphasis of Mr. Chopko’s practice focuses on constitutional law, and sensitivity to the boundary between religion and government.
Mr. Chopko represents clients across the United States and in Europe. He is involved in defending organizations facing complex, high profile, multi-million dollar damage claims against several entities in the denominational structure and advising religious entities in bankruptcy proceedings. He has been involved in protecting a religious institution’s rights to follow its religious teachings in its own workplace and organizing its assets by balancing obligations under religious law as well as secular law. He is involved in litigation arguing that a law reviving lapsed civil claims for damages is unconstitutional. Mr. Chopko also advises clients on regulatory and public policy matters, and assists organizations confronting the need to reorganize, whether for liability planning purposes or to assure that the civil structures accord with the polity of the denomination or any other reason.
Mr. Chopko has more than 20 years of experience serving as the principal legal officer to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) – an organization that provides a framework by which the Catholic Bishops of the United States addresses important issues of national policy and matters affecting church life.
During his tenure with the USCCB, Mr. Chopko led a seven-lawyer staff that handled comprehensive litigation, corporate, tax, intellectual property, employment and government contracts services.
He was also the public contact for the USCCB on all legal matters, including church-state, Supreme Court cases, bankruptcy, complex litigation and bioethics. Mr. Chopko has participated in more than 30 Supreme Court cases as counsel for the Catholic Bishops as well as other religious groups, in friend-of-the-Court briefs. He is also nationally known for his work on the tort liability of nonprofit entities.
He currently serves as an advisor to an American Law Institute project on stating the law of nonprofit organizations. Mr. Chopko has also been a member of the Nonprofit and Association Committee of the Association of Corporate Counsel (America), the Religious Liberty Committee of the National Council of Churches, and a Fellow of the International Academy of Freedom of Religion and Belief.
Mr. Chopko is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University where he teaches a seminar on church-state law. He has lectured widely in the United States and in Europe on liability trends, church-state relations, legal ethics for church lawyers, assisted suicide and a variety of other topics, at conferences hosted by bar associations, colleges and universities, lawyer guilds and religious organizations. Mr. Chopko is also the published author of more than 40 articles on topics including church-state affairs, education, bioethics and liability issues.
In 2002, in recognition of his support for the religious bar, Mr. Chopko was elected an honorary member of the Church Law Society of the Czech Republic. The National Law Journal also named him “corporate counsel of the week” for his work on the Bishops’ Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, and in Supreme Court victories upholding school vouchers and limiting the imposition of the death penalty.
Additionally, in 2004, the National Journal magazine profiled him as one of ten people “whose ideas will help shape the debates over [church-state] issues.” That same year, the University of Scranton recognized Mr. Chopko as a distinguished alumnus.Read full bio » |
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| PRACTICE AREAS |
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| Nonprofit & Religious Organizations |
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| Litigation |
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| Business |
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| Government & Public Affairs |
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| BAR ADMISSIONS |
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| District of Columbia |
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| Pennsylvania |
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| COURT ADMISSIONS |
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| U.S. Supreme Court |
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| U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit |
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| U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit |
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| U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit |
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| U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia |
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| EDUCATION |
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| J.D., cum laude, Cornell Law School, 1977 |
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| B.S., summa cum laude, University of Scranton, 1974 |
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| MEMBERSHIPS |
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| Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law Center |
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| Advisor, American Law Institute |
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| District of Columbia Bar Association |
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| Fellow, International Academy of Freedom of Religion and Belief |
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| Honorary Member, Church Law Society, Prague, Czech Republic |
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| Religious Liberty Committee, National Council of the Churches of Christ |
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| Member, Nonprofit Forum |
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| National Diocesan Attorneys Association |
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| PUBLICATIONS |
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| Click here for a list of publications |
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| NEWS AND EVENTS |
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| Click here to view news and events |
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