Sheldon T. Zenner

Sheldon T. Zenner is national head of Katten's Litigation and Dispute Resolution Practice, a member of the firm's Board of Directors and previous chair of the firm's White Collar Defense, Internal Investigations and Compliance Practice, which he founded in 1989 upon joining the firm.

Mr. Zenner is an accomplished trial lawyer whose practice involves both white collar and complex commercial litigation focused on a wide variety of antitrust, securities, health care, customs, FCPA, education, fraud and tax matters. He also counsels boards of directors and companies on compliance and corporate governance issues and, over his 33-year career, has represented countless companies and executives in both internal and external criminal and civil investigations and ancillary lawsuits. Mr. Zenner has extensive experience negotiating with the US Department of Justice, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, US Attorneys' offices throughout the country and various other regulatory agencies and state attorneys general. In 2005 he was commissioned to participate in the Seventh Circuit American Jury Project, which was established by the Seventh Circuit Bar Association to test civil trial concepts adopted by the American Bar Association. In 2003 he served on Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's Corporate Corruption Transition Working Group.

In addition, Mr. Zenner has served as an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University School of Law and the Medill School of Journalism, teaching courses on clinical trial practice, the legal system and law and ethics of journalism. He has lectured at the Corporate Counsel Institute and the ABA's National Institute on Securities Fraud, and has served as a faculty member for Northwestern University's Short Course for Prosecutors and Defense Counsel. He was co-chair of the Legal Assistance Foundation's Campaign for Justice, and was named the winner of LAF's 2010 Champion for Justice Award.

Mr. Zenner graduated from Northwestern University with honors and distinction in political science. He thereafter earned his law degree, cum laude, from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was on the staff of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

Upon graduating from law school, Mr. Zenner clerked for Judge Marvin E. Aspen in the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. After his clerkship, Mr. Zenner joined the US Attorney’s Office in Chicago as an Assistant US Attorney, where he held various senior supervisory positions. In that capacity, Mr. Zenner was actively involved in numerous complex federal trials involving sophisticated financial transactions, RICO, political corruption, health care and tax issues. After seven and a half years, Mr. Zenner left the US Attorney’s Office as the Deputy Chief, Special Prosecutions Division to join Katten.

Mr. Zenner has regularly been listed in The Best Lawyers in America (1995–2013), Chambers USA, Illinois Super Lawyers (2005–2013) and Leading Lawyers in Illinois. He has also been named one of the top business crime defense lawyers in the country in The International Who's Who of Business Lawyers and recognized in Benchmark Litigation (2008–2013). In addition, the firm’s White Collar Defense, Internal Investigations and Compliance Practice is ranked among the nation’s best by Chambers USA. Mr. Zenner's trial and investigative skills, both as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer, have been chronicled in seven books and two films, as well as in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Financial Times, USA Today and the Chicago Tribune, among others. Mr. Zenner has also appeared on numerous television and radio programs as an expert on trial practice.