Ted Clark is a founding partner of the law firm of Clark Baird Smith LLP. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. degree from Syracuse University and received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. With over 45 years of experience, Ted represents both public and private sector management clients with respect to a wide variety of collective bargaining and employment law matters, including mediation and interest arbitration.

Ted is a co-author with Judge Harry Edwards and Professor Charles Craver of Labor Relations Law in the Public Sector: Cases and Materials (Bobbs-Merrill 1974), the first law school textbook in the area of public sector labor relations. The fourth edition was published in 1992. For many years he taught the public sector labor law course at Northwestern University Law School. Ted has also written numerous articles and publications that have been published by such journals as the UCLA Law Review, the Journal of Law and Education, the Wisconsin Law Review, the Minnesota Law Review, the Oregon Law Review, and the Illinois Bar Journal. For the past twenty years, he has been listed in the book The Best Lawyers in America. In 2005 Ted was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Bar Association’s State and Local Government Committee. In 2010 Ted was the first recipient of the American Bar Association’s Arvid Anderson Public Sector Labor and Employment Law, Lawyer of the Year Award.

Ted is a frequent participant in seminars and symposia sponsored by such organizations as the National Academy of Arbitrators, the Labor and Employment Relations Association, the American Bar Association, Chicago-Kent College of Law, the National Public Employer Labor Relations Association, the National Association of School Boards, and the International Municipal Lawyers Association.

He edits a regular column on legal developments in public sector labor law and dispute resolution for the NPELRA Newsletter. He has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago and is on the Advisory Committee of the Illinois Educational Labor Relations Board.

Ted is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the American Bar Association, and is a Fellow in the College of Labor and Employment Lawyers. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the Dispute Resolution Research Center at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. In addition, he served for eight years as a member of the Advisory Board of the Maxwell School of Public Affairs and Citizenship at Syracuse University (2001-2009).

The Supreme Court of Illinois does not recognize certifications of specialties in the practice of law and no certificate, award or recognition is a requirement to practice law in Illinois.