Chris Green is a trial lawyer with more than 25 years of experience handling complex commercial disputes. He joined Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in 1997, leaving Debevoise & Plimpton to join the firm’s original office in Armonk, New York, when Boies Schiller had fewer than 20 lawyers. Chris remained with the firm as it grew into a major international litigation firm, spending eighteen years as a partner. For many years, he served as the Armonk office’s Hiring Partner and Pro Bono Partner.
At Boies Schiller, Chris represented clients in state and federal trial and appellate courts, arbitrations, and regulatory proceedings across a wide range of substantive areas. He led a team that successfully tried fraud claims against an individual defendant to a federal jury in Nevada, obtaining what was then the largest reported punitive-damages verdict against an individual in Nevada history. He was part of the team that represented Barclays Capital Inc. in the multibillion-dollar dispute arising from Barclays’ acquisition of Lehman Brothers’ investment-banking business during the 2008 financial crisis; successfully defended American Express in a 14-week bench trial of a nationwide consumer class action seeking more than $500 million; and represented the whistleblower in a False Claims Act case that produced a $663 million judgment following a federal jury trial.
Chris’s connections to Kohn Dumain date back decades. He was an important early mentor to Ian Dumain, giving Ian his first opportunity to examine a witness in a federal jury trial when Ian was a third-year lawyer. They later became partners at Boies Schiller. As the Armonk office’s Pro Bono Partner, Chris also supervised Ian and Brian Kohn on a number of wrongful-conviction matters. As Hiring Partner, Chris focused significant recruiting efforts on his alma mater, the University of Virginia School of Law, and recruited fellow UVA Law graduate Mary Kate Fuentes to Boies Schiller, where she began working closely with Ian.
More recently, Chris practiced with Sokoloff Stern LLP, a New York litigation firm whose practice includes the representation of businesses, governments and other public entities in civil-rights, tort, commercial and other litigation. There, Chris defended individuals, companies, and municipalities in New York state court, adding substantial hands-on experience with New York practice and procedure to a career that had included extensive federal litigation.
Chris took an unconventional path to the law. A native of Lexington, Kentucky, he grew up on Greentree Stud, a Thoroughbred breeding farm where his father was the farm manager. He left college to enter the Thoroughbred industry full time, buying, selling, and breeding horses before learning the training business and ultimately training Thoroughbreds on his own. He later returned to college and earned his undergraduate degree in English from the University of Kentucky, whose English Department named him its Alumnus of the Year in 2018. Chris graduated from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a published member of the Virginia Law Review.
That experience gave Chris a business perspective well before he became a lawyer. It also eventually intersected with his legal career. Chris represented the NFL in sports-law matters and tried cases involving equine issues before federal juries. A lifelong horseman, he became deeply involved with the United States Polo Association (“USPA”), initially as a volunteer and later in its leadership, including as Chairman of its Rules Committee.
Chris ultimately left private practice to become the USPA’s Chief Operating Officer and in-house counsel, roles he held for four years. Founded in 1890, the USPA is the national governing body for polo in the United States, with more than 200 member clubs and more than 5,000 registered members. It oversees national tournaments and is responsible for matters ranging from rules, handicaps, and officiating to player and youth development, club support, and the safety and welfare of the sport’s human and equine participants.
As Chief Operating Officer, Chris worked with the USPA’s elected leadership to set the organization’s long-range goals, policies, and strategic priorities and oversaw a professional staff of approximately 100 charged with carrying them out. As the organization’s in-house lawyer, he advised its leadership on legal and risk-management issues, managed outside counsel, and oversaw matters involving corporate governance, contracts, investigations, disciplinary proceedings, intellectual property, and regulatory issues.
Chris brings both sides of that experience to his work at Kohn Dumain. He has spent much of his career advocating for clients in consequential disputes, but he has also been a businessperson himself and the senior executive responsible for running a complex organization. At the USPA, he simultaneously occupied the client’s chair and served as its in-house lawyer, deciding how legal considerations fit within larger business and institutional objectives. That perspective informs his approach to disputes: legal strategy should serve the client’s broader objectives, not become an end in itself.
Prior Associations
Sokoloff Stern LLP
Of Counsel
United States Polo Association
Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel
Boies Schiller Flexner LLP
Partner
Debevoise & Plimpton
Associate
Education
University of Virginia School of Law, J.D.
• Virginia Law Review, Editorial Board Member
University of Kentucky, B.A.
• 2018 Alumnus of the Year, College of Arts & Sciences, Department of English
Admissions
New York
U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
