About Madeline Ward
Madeline Ward Lansky built her legal foundation at the University of Southern California, where she earned a B.A. in political science in 2013, and at the University of Chicago Law School, where she received her J.D. in 2016. Those years set the stage for a string of clerkships and positions in litigation-focused firms and chambers.
Her early post-law-school work began on the federal appeals bench. In 2016 she served as a law clerk to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. That experience led quickly to private practice. She joined Bartlit Beck LLP as an associate in 2017 and returned to the firm in 2019 after a period at the Supreme Court.
Lansky has two separate clerkship stints at the Supreme Court of the United States, listed in her record for 2018 and 2020. Those roles exposed her to merits briefing and opinion drafting at the highest level of the federal judiciary. Between and after those clerkships she worked in litigation practice at Bartlit Beck and, most recently, at Jones Day, where she has been an associate since 2021.
Her bar memberships reflect that path. She is admitted to the bar in New York (2017) and Illinois (2018), and she is also admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court. She holds current memberships in the New York State Bar and the Illinois State Bar. Those admissions have supported a practice that moves between state and federal appellate work and complex commercial litigation.
Colleagues describe her record in terms of sustained appellate drafting and courtroom preparation rather than flashy wins. Her resume shows repeated exposure to appeal-oriented tasks: preparing briefs, researching circuit and Supreme Court precedent, and assisting on bench and jury trial preparation at large litigation boutiques. The alternating pattern of clerkships and associate roles suggests a lawyer comfortable shifting between research-intensive court work and client-side advocacy.
She is currently an associate at Jones Day, where she works on appellate and commercial litigation matters. Her practice concentrates on appellate briefing and argument and on handling complex civil disputes for institutional clients.
