Lori E. Lightfoot

She leverages her unique and broad professional experience gained from serving as a federal prosecutor in the Northern District of Illinois, as a senior partner at Mayer Brown LLP where she routinely advised C-suite clients of both publicly traded and privately held corporations, and as the 56th Mayor of the City of Chicago who led Chicago through the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises with regional and national implications.

Lori’s expertise includes complex internal investigations, assisting with the resolution of high-stakes litigation and enforcement actions, crisis management and communications, and monitorships, as well as a range of procurement-related matters especially involving minority, women, disadvantaged businesses, bankruptcy disputes, and related regulatory compliance matters.

Since leaving elected office, Lori has served as the Richard L. and Ronay A. Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and currently serves as a Pritzker Fellow at the University of Chicago Institute of Politics. She also founded a nonprofit, The Chicago Vibrant Neighborhoods Collective, to help sustain and grow community-based organizations across Chicago, and for which she serves as board chair and senior advisor. Lori is also a contributor to the Harvard Public Health Magazine.

During her career, Lori has received numerous honors and awards, including:

• Top 10 Innovative Lawyers, Financial Times
• Most Influential Woman Lawyer in Chicago List, Crain’s Chicago Business
• The Chicago Federal Bar Association Walter J. Cummings Award for Pro Bono Service
• Woman of Influence, Chicago Business Journal
• Legal Legend Award, The American Constitution Society Chicago
• Dominican University’s Ethics and Leadership Award
• In June 2020, in honor of the 50th anniversary of the first LGBTQ Pride parade, Queerty named her among the fifty heroes “leading the nation toward equality, acceptance, and dignity for all people.”
• National Minority Quality Forum’s Honorable John Lewis Lifetime Achievement Award
• Champion of the Public Interest Award, issued by Business and Professional People for the Public Interest