Steven McKnight

Steven G. McKnight, General Counsel of The Rhoads Group, is a veteran trial attorney who brings his substantial legal and policy background to the table in support of a variety of clients in the financial, business, and defense arenas. Steven began his legal career handling a broad range of sophisticated corporate and financial litigation matters while in private practice. Among his areas of expertise were intellectual property litigation and transactions, later leading to his serving as chair of the local bar committee on intellectual property and invitations to lecture at seminars on related topics. In 1987 Steven joined the U.S. Justice Department and served as a prosecutor specializing in tax fraud and financial crimes. Steven continued to specialize in financial crimes after being appointed as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee. During this tenure he also handled large-scale civil and criminal forfeiture matters as well as bankruptcy and other civil cases for two divisions of the district. Joining forces with his colleague at the Department of Justice, Barry Rhoads, Steven turned his skills towards legal and public policy work on economic and defense matters, handling defense-related privatization and development issues, including representation of communities on base closure matters. During his service as the firm's senior legal advisor, Steven has broadened the scope of the public policy expertise at The Rhoads Group while focusing on policy reform advocacy and representation of clients in Executive and Legislative Branch settings. A native of Tennessee, Steven is a summa cum laude graduate of Vanderbilt University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts from the School of Arts and Science, and his J.D. degree from the School of Law, where he was a member of the Vanderbilt Law Review.