Chris Liberati-Conant has more than a decade of broad legal experience as a trial and appellate lawyer and public defender. For the past five years, he’s served in the office of the New York State Attorney General in two significant roles. As an Assistant Attorney General, he successfully protected New York’s Reproductive Health Act, the 2019 law which guarantees abortion rights in the state. Chris also successfully beat back the challenge to the state’s decision to close sleep-away camps in the summer of 2020 at the height of the pandemic. More recently, as Assistant Solicitor General for New York State, he protected children who had been neglected, upheld the integrity of the horse racing industry, and made sure that polluters paid for the cleanup of oil spills.

Chris has also clerked for New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, and drafted hundreds of opinions for a NYS Supreme Court Justice. And his work as a public defender involved taking on challenging, difficult cases and gave him a front-row view of the failures of the mental health system and the urgent need to improve care and treatment.

An independent-minded Democrat, Chris shares the mainstream values of Columbia County families. He’s active in the community, volunteering for his local fire department where he now serves as 2nd Lieutenant. And he’s active in the legal community, currently serving on the Ethics and Professional Discipline Committees of the NYS Bar Association. Chris has also taught legal writing at Albany Law School.

Chris grew up in New Jersey, the son of a Vietnam veteran and a hardworking mom. His guiding light growing up was his grandmother, a fiercely independent advocate for women’s rights and civil rights who earned a college degree in her sixties, and gave both unconditional love and clear moral direction throughout his childhood. Chris earned his bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and graduated magna cum laude from the St. John’s University School of Law.

Chris and his wife, Lauren, a school teacher, live in the Village of Chatham, with their son, Calvin, a second grader at Mary E. Dardess Elementary, and their dog, Rosie.