Clinton Sanko is the office managing shareholder of Baker Donelson's Chattanooga office and the Firm's eDiscovery officer. He is an experienced commercial trial lawyer with substantial experience in high-stakes, complex commercial litigation. Clinton has extensive experience litigating employee mobility issues, including labor antitrust litigation, trade-secret disputes, and non-competition covenants. This includes defending a client in two large multidistrict antitrust class actions alleging wage and compensation fixing of thousands of employees. In trade secret misappropriation cases, Clinton navigates among forensic specialists, in-house IT, and client legal teams to identify key evidence and build (or defend against) a trade secret claim. Clinton also handles contract litigation disputes (particularly those involving technology), minority-shareholder rights cases, condemnation, and other commercial matters.
As the firm's eDiscovery officer, Clinton oversees the technology, process, and staffing supporting the firm's eDiscovery efforts. Appointed as a special master in a trade secret dispute, he applies a practical, case-specific approach. In class actions, Clinton has led certain Joint Defense Group discovery committees. He champions an efficiency-through-proportionality model, combining analytics with disciplined workflows to manage costs while maintaining defensibility. A frequent speaker on eDiscovery, he emphasizes collaboration among experienced lawyers, project managers, necessary document reviewers, and technologists through clear protocols and quality controls. His leadership ensures relevant data is preserved, collected, reviewed, and produced on time, within budget, and in a form that supports the merits.
Clinton also advises clients on the accelerating influence of artificial intelligence in litigation strategy. He views AI not as a replacement for advocacy but as an integrated accelerator that can rewire every stage of a dispute – from early risk assessment through trial presentation. By embedding responsible AI into search, review, deposition preparation, motion practice, and fact management, he helps clients harvest insights earlier, surface patterns humans might miss, and redeploy legal talent to higher-value analysis. Although mindful of privacy, privilege, and accuracy risks, Clinton believes that carefully governed AI will unlock powerful synergies – particularly in discovery and fact narrative development – that shorten timelines, sharpen arguments, and ultimately enhance outcomes for clients (and courts) alike.
Clinton is a member of the firm's Technology Steering Committee.