Christopher Connolly

Christopher Connolly is an accomplished civil litigator with over fifteen years of government experience. From 2010 to 2025, Chris served as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, representing the federal government, its agencies, and its personnel in all stages of affirmative and defensive civil litigation, both in the district and appellate courts. As Deputy Chief Appellate Attorney from 2015 to 2025, Chris supervised the SDNY’s civil appellate docket, authored or edited over one hundred federal appellate briefs, and argued over a dozen appeals before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and elsewhere.

Chris’s experience includes litigating cases involving national security, foreign relations, constitutional, environmental, and civil rights issues, among others. Representative matters include:

• Successfully defended withholding of classified national security information in series of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits.
• On appeal, obtained reversal of district court decision and dismissal of constitutional tort claims brought against high-ranking military officials sued in their personal capacities.
• Successfully defended, in district court and on appeal, Department of Health and Human Services’ interpretation of Medicaid Act’s complaint-investigation provisions.
• Filed statements of interest on behalf of the United States in matters implicating foreign relations and international treaty obligations.
• Conducted investigation and filed complaint against restaurant group for violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act, resulting in consent decree.
• Conducted investigation and filed complaint against commercial petroleum distributors for violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, resulting in consent decree.
• Obtained dismissal of challenge to constitutionality of Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act and obtained affirmance of dismissal on appeal.
• Successfully defended U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ issuance of Clean Water Act permit to the City of New York.

Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Chris clerked for the Honorable Paul A. Crotty of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. He began his career as a litigation associate at Clifford Chance, where, among other things, he represented pro bono clients in immigration proceedings.

Chris received both his J.D. and LL.M. in International and Comparative Law from Cornell Law School, and earned his B.A. in Foreign Affairs from the University of Virginia. He is an adjunct professor at Fordham University School of Law, where he teaches an upper-level writing seminar.