Lecturer in Law, Stanford; Former General Counsel, Cisco
Snowmass Village, CO
Mark Chandler retired in 2021 after 30 years as a public-company general counsel, the last 20 years at Cisco. He’s currently a Lecturer in Law at Stanford, where he created the Filing Fairness Project at the Rhode Center on the Legal Profession. The project works with courts to modernize access for matters like domestic violence, debt collection and eviction defense.
In 1984, having decided law wasn’t for him, Mark participated in a cultural exchange program in Germany, followed by three years in a marketing job with the German electronics company Siemens. In 1988, Mark returned to law as general counsel at Maxtor, a disk-drive manufacturer.
In 1997, after Cisco acquired Mark’s then-employer, StrataCom Inc., he was tasked with building Cisco’s European legal team, based in Paris. In 2001, he became global chief legal officer, and had the chance to engage on issues ranging from international human rights to the US patent system. He’s always been fascinated with process improvement, and set out to apply to the hide-bound corporate legal world the internet-based tools that had become ubiquitous in many other sectors. Mark’s current project at Stanford, born of frustration with antiquated, opaque court systems, brings the same thought-process to America’s civil justice system.
Mark is on the board of Search for Common Ground, Paladin PBC, and Belmont Hill School. He and his wife, Laurie Wingate live in Snowmass Village, Colorado and have six children between them, and he has two grandchildren. Mark went to Harvard College and Stanford Law School.
DCI Partner: Laurie Wingate