Mark P. Chalos, Civil Rights Attorney in Nashville, Tennessee

The Managing Partner of Lieff Cabraser’s Nashville office, Mark Chalos has been appointed to lead multidistrict litigations and class actions in federal and state courts throughout the country. Mark represents individuals who have suffered catastrophic personal injuries, as well as consumers, businesses, and municipalities that have been defrauded. Mark prosecutes product defect cases against U.S. and foreign corporations that make and sell allegedly defective or dangerous consumer products, ranging from automobiles to pharmaceutical drugs and devices. Mark also represents survivors of institutional sexual abuse, which includes compelling institutions to adopt procedures and safeguards to prevent future abuse.

Mark has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars for his clients in jury verdicts, arbitration rulings, and settlements.

To help fight the opioids catastrophe that has devastated communities across America, Mark represents large and small counties, cities, Native American tribes, and health benefit providers in litigation that seeks to make our communities safer. In addition to serving on the firm’s court-appointed leadership team in the national opioids litigation, Mark recently served as trial counsel in the national bellwether trial on behalf of the City of San Francisco, which resulted in a successful verdict for his client.

Mark also represents families in communities that have been deprived of access to safe drinking water, including in Jackson, Mississippi, and Benton Harbor, Michigan, where residents have been exposed for years to water poisoned with lead and other contaminants.

Mark has been appointed to leadership roles in numerous complex civil proceedings, including: Co-Lead MDL Counsel in In re: Generac Solar Power Systems Marketing Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3078; Co-Lead MDL Counsel, In re Evenflo Co., Inc. Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (child booster seats), MDL 2938 (D. Mass); Co-Lead MDL Counsel and Co-Lead Trial Counsel, In re Whirlpool Front Loading Washer Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2001 (N.D. Ohio); Co-Lead Interim Class Counsel, Miller v. Ford (engine failures), Case No. 2:20-cv-01796 (E.D. Ca); Co-Lead Class Counsel, Weidman v. Ford (brake failures), Case No. 2:18-cv-12719 (E.D. MI); Co-Lead Class Counsel in Alger v. FCA US, LLC (exploding headrests), Case No. 2:18-CV-00360 (E.D. Ca); Co-Lead Counsel in Braziel v. Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (consolidated litigation re: lead contamination of Benton Harbor’s water system), Case No. 22-000046-MM (Michigan Court of Claims); Plaintiffs Executive Committee, In re: East Palestine Train Derailment, Case No. 4:23-cv-00242 (N.D Ohio); Plaintiffs Executive Committee, Murphy v. Graco Children’s Products (child booster seats), Case No. 1:20-CV-03030-LMM (N.D. Ga.); Chair of MDL Expert Committee, In re General Motors Air Conditioning Marketing and Sales Practices Litigation, MDL 2818 (E.D. MI); Plaintiffs Steering Committee, In re Exactech Polyethylene Orthopedic Products Liability Litigation, MDL 3044 (EDNY); Plaintiffs Steering Committee, Federal/State Litigation Liaison, in In re New England Compounding Pharmacy, Inc. Products Liability Litigation (fungal meningitis/infections), MDL 2419 (D. Mass); Plaintiffs Steering Committee and Co-Chair Plaintiffs Expert Committee in In re Navistar Diesel Engine Product Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2223 (N.D. Ill); and Plaintiffs Steering Committee in In re Ford Switch Fire Litigation, Texas state MDL, Travis County, Texas, Cause No. D-1-GN-08-000901. Mark also represents clients in many centralized litigations across the country.

Mark served in the court-appointed leadership representing East Palestine, Ohio residents in litigation arising from a train derailment and fire that released toxic chemicals into their community. The $600 million settlement is believed to be the largest settlement for a railroad disaster in U.S. history.

An active member of the legal community, Mark serves as President of the Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (formerly served as Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the organization), on its Board of Governors, and as a Trustee of the political action committee Lawyers Involved for Tennessee (LIFT). On the national level, Mark serves as Co-Chair of the American Association for Justice (AAJ) Class Action Litigation Group, serves as a Member of the AAJ Public Affairs Committee and is a Past-Chair of the AAJ Public Education Committee. Mark serves on the board of directors of the Tennessee Innocence Project, an organization dedicated to freeing wrongly convicted and incarcerated persons.

Mark and his co-authors recently updated their acclaimed book, Litigating International Torts in United States Courts (Thomson Reuters West, 2022 ed.), a practical resource for legal practitioners and judges. Mark has also authored a number of articles published in peer-reviewed journals, including articles in the national publications TRIAL Magazine and The Trial Lawyer on holding foreign companies accountable for injuries they cause in the U.S., and has served on the Law360 Product Liability Editorial Advisory Board, providing feedback on Law360’s news coverage of the legal world.

Mark serves as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Vanderbilt Law School, teaching The Practice of Aggregate Litigation. Mark served as a Drafting Team Leader for “Guidelines And Best Practices For Large And Mass-Tort MDLs,” (2d Edition, 2018), Bolch Judicial Institute, Duke Law School, as well as for “Discovery Proportionality Guidelines and Practices,” 99 JUDICATURE, no. 3, Winter 2015, at 47-60, Duke Law Center for Judicial Studies. He also served on the Select Committee on Class Actions within Emory University School of Law’s Institute for Complex Litigation and Mass Claims.

Mark is a frequent speaker at legal seminars nationwide on a variety of civil litigation topics. He has also been cited by top-tier media outlets including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, The Washington Post, NPR’s Morning Edition, Associated Press, Forbes, ABC News, CNN, CBS This Morning, FoxNews, and MSNBC. Recently, Mark acted as legal analyst for a series of articles in The Tennessean regarding a nationally significant privacy trial based on illegal videos taken of a woman in a Nashville hotel by another hotel guest and distributed on the internet, leading to a $55 million jury verdict for the plaintiff.

Mark has been named among The Best Lawyers in America, “Mid-South Super Lawyers,” “Nashville’s Best Lawyers,” and Nashville Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar.” Mark has been included in The Best Lawyers in America via peer vote nationwide in the fields of “Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions-Plaintiffs” from 2012 through 2023. Mark was named in the Nashville Business Journal’s “Best of the Bar” from 2015-2017 and to the “Top 100: Tennessee Super Lawyers” for 2015 and 2019, a distinction for attorneys with the highest evaluations statewide. Mark was named an American Bar Foundation fellow in 2016. The organization is dedicated to advancing justice through rigorous research on the law and membership is limited to 1% of attorneys in each state. Also from 2016 - 2022, Mark was listed as one of Nashville Post’s lawyers “In Charge.”

Mark is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court; United States Court of Appeals for the First, Sixth, and Seventh Circuits; the United States District Court for the Western, Middle, and Eastern Districts of Tennessee; the Northern District of Florida; and the courts of the State of Tennessee. He is a member of the American, Tennessee, and Nashville Bar Associations, as well as the American Association for Justice and Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association.

Publications & Presentations

•Panelist, “Trends in Privacy Litigation AI,” HarrisMartin Data Breach Litigation Conference, May 2026
•Panelist, “Sex Assault Cases Nationwide: An Update from Coast to Coast,” Mass Torts Made Perfect (MTMP) Spring Seminar, April 2026
•Panelist, “Taking Class Actions to Trial,” Consumer Rights Litigation Conference & Class Action Symposium (NCLC/NACA), November 2025
•Speaker, Southeast Complex Litigation Conference, Tennessee Bar Association, October 2025
•Panelist, “MDL Common Benefit Fees,” American Association for Justice Annual Convention, July 2025
•Speaker, “Jackson (Mississippi) Water Crisis: Litigation Status and Community Impact”; Panelist, “The Future of Water Litigation,” HarrisMartin Water Contamination Litigation Webinar Series, May 2025
•Panelist, “Litigating Sexual Assault Cases - Best Practices for Individual and Mass Cases,” Mass Torts Made Perfect (MTMP) Spring Seminar,” April 2025
•Panelist, “Who Wants to Be an Ethical Lawyer? A Game Show on Class Action Ethics,” ABA National Institute on Class Actions, October 2024
•Panelist, “Litigating Sexual Assault Cases And Strategies To Deal With Defendants Tactics,” Mass Torts Made Perfect Fall Conference, October 2024
•Panelist, “What is a Plaintiff’s Attorney?” Vanderbilt Law School Career Panel, February 2024
•Speaker, “Issues Classes Under Rule 23(C)(4),” “Learning How to Litigate High Profile Sexual Assault Cases,” Mass Torts Made Perfect Fall 2023 Seminar, October 2023
•Speaker, “Issue Class Certification in Class Actions and Mass Torts,” American Association for Justice Annual Convention, July 2023
•Speaker, “Sexual Assault Cases, Legislation & the Need to Extend the Statute of Limitations,” Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association (TTLA) 2023 New Orleans Seminar, January 2023
•Faculty, “Texas Two Step. When Insurance is Gone and the Bankruptcy Court Is Not: Mass Torts in Crisis,” Mississippi Association for Justice (MAJ) Winter CLE Seminar, December 2022
•Speaker, “The Death of Mass Torts? J&J Talc Bankruptcy & Other Updates/Southern Baptist Convention church sex abuse cases,” Tennessee Trial Lawyers Association Annual Convention, June 2022
•Panelist, “State of the Settlements, Bellwethers, and Settlement Design Innovations,” Georgetown Law School Virtual Opioid Litigation Summit, September 2021
•“Why fair trials are important to the American legal system,” Tennessean, January 2020
•Litigating International Torts in United States Courts, 2015 ed., Thomas Reuters/West, 2015
•“Supreme Court Limits The Reach of Alien Tort Statute in Kiobel,” Legal Solutions Blog, April 2013 My link
•“The Rise of Bellwether Trials,” Legal Solutions Blog, March 2013
•“Amgen: The Supreme Court Refuses to Erect New Class Action Bar,” Legal Solutions Blog, March 2013
•“Are International Wrongdoers Above the Law?” The Trial Lawyer Magazine, January 2013
•“Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum: Supreme Court to Decide Role of US Courts Abroad,” ABA Journal, January 2013

Honors & Awards

•AV Preeminent Peer Review Rated, Martindale-Hubbell
•Selected for inclusion by peers in The Best Lawyers in America in fields of “Consumer Protection Law,” “Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions - Plaintiffs,” “Personal Injury Litigation - Plaintiffs,” “Product Liability Litigation - Plaintiffs” 2012-2026
•“Lawdragon 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyers,” Lawdragon, 2024-2026
•“Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America,” Lawdragon, 2026
•“Lawdragon 500 Leading Litigators in America,” Lawdragon, 2026
•“Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers in America,” Lawdragon, 2019-2026
•“Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Financial Lawyers in America,” Lawdragon, 2024-2026
•“Lawyer of the Year for Product Liability Litigation,” Nashville, Best Lawyers, 2021, 2026
•“Super Lawyer for Mid-South,” Super Lawyers, 2011-2025
•Nashville Post’s Annual “In Charge” list, 2016-2024
•“Distinguished Leader,” ALM/Southeastern Legal Awards, 2023
•“Tennessee Top 100,” Super Lawyers, 2013-2023
•“South Trailblazer,” The American Lawyer, 2022
•“Outstanding Private Practice Antitrust Achievement,” American Antitrust Institute, 2020
•American Bar Foundation Fellow, 2016
•“Best of the Bar,” Nashville Business Journal, 2008-2010, 2015-2017
•“Tennessee Litigation Star,” Benchmark Litigation, 2013 - 2015
•“Rising Star for Mid-South,” Super Lawyers, 2008-2010
•“Top 40 Under 40,” The Tennessean, 2004

In the News

••May 13, 2026
Mark Chalos Urges Fifth Circuit to Hold Gov’t Accountable in Jackson, MS Water Crisis Appeal
•May 8, 2026
Mark Chalos to Speak at HarrisMartin Data Breach Litigation Conference in Milwaukee, WI
•April 24, 2026
19 Lieff Cabraser Lawyers Named to the 2026 “Lawdragon 500 Global Plaintiff Lawyers” Guide
•April 15, 2026
Mark Chalos Discusses Sexual Assault Cases Nationwide at MTMP Spring 2026 Seminar
•April 14, 2026
Mark Chalos Named a Finalist for Managing Partner of the Year by the Daily Report