Mark E. Chopko is partner and Chair of the Nonprofit and Religious Organizations Practice Group at the law firm of Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young in its Washington, D.C. office. He works with a team of two dozen attorneys that provide comprehensive legal services to religious and nonprofit organizations across the United States. Before joining the firm in 2007, Mr. Chopko served as general counsel of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) for over 20 years and as a regulatory attorney in Washington, D.C. for nearly eight. He earned his bachelor of arts at the University of Scranton before earning his Juris Doctor from Cornell University.
Mr. Chopko has written over 60 articles on the church-state affairs, education, and liability issues of these institutions, and has been cited in articles and court opinions more than 300 times. In addition to his practice, he lectures as an adjunct professor of law at the Georgetown University Law Center and in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and routinely publishes articles discussing the legal trends related to religious organizations, especially in the area of liability and risk management. He is a member of the NonProfit Forum out of the NYU law school and Chancellor of the Middle Atlantic Lieutenancy of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.
He and his wife Jane live in Northern Virginia.