About Mr. T. Markus
Mr. T. Markus Funk built his legal foundation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he graduated in 1987 with a B.S. in Business. He went on to earn a J.D. from Northwestern University and later pursued doctoral work at Oxford University, where he was also a lecturer in criminal law in 1997. The combination of American legal training and time at Oxford shaped an early interest in comparative and international criminal issues.
Funk began his post-law school career in federal court. In 1995 he served as a law clerk to Hon. Chatherine D. Perry. He later clerked for Hon. Morris S. Arnold of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in 1999. Those clerkships led to a position at the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2000 he joined the Chicago office as an Assistant United States Lawyer, handling federal prosecutions and related litigation.
After government service he moved into private practice and, in 2010, became a partner at Perkins Coie. His practice has spanned domestic criminal matters, government investigations, and cross-border litigation. He has combined trial experience with advisory work on statutory and regulatory issues. He has also engaged in public-facing roles that intersect law and policy.
Funk has been active in bar organizations and task forces. He has served as National Co-Chair of the ABA Global Anti-Corruption Task Force since 2010 and as an associate editor of ABA Litigation Magazine starting the same year. He was appointed an ABA Special Advisor to the Uniform Law Commission in 2011 and joined the advisory board of the BNA Criminal Law Reporter in 2011. His involvement with the ABA has included work on human trafficking and international rule-of-law matters. He was National Co-Chair of the ABA Section of Litigation Special Committee on Human Trafficking from 2008 to 2010, chaired the Section of Litigation Kosovo Task Force in 2008, and participated in the ABA Haiti and Darfur Task Forces between 2007 and 2011. Since 2012 he has been a member of the ABA President’s Task Force on Human Trafficking.
The arc of his career shows a lawyer who moves between courtroom work and institutional reform. He is admitted to practice in the District of Columbia, Illinois and Colorado. He balances litigation and investigative work with involvement in professional standards and policy efforts at the ABA and in legal publishing.
He currently practices at Perkins Coie, where his practice focuses on white-collar defense, complex litigation and anti-corruption matters.
