Christopher Michael Kise (born December 23, 1964) is an American lawyer who served as the second

Solicitor General of Florida The solicitor general of Florida or Florida solicitor general is the top appellate (appeals) solicitor (lawyer) for the U.S. State of Florida. It is an appointed position in the Office of the Florida Attorney General and the individual serves at ...

from 2003 to 2006. Kise has served on the board of directors of Enterprise Florida, was an advisor to Republican politicians

Charlie Crist Charles Joseph Crist Jr. (; born July 24, 1956) is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011 and as the U.S. representative for from 2017 to 2022. Crist has been a member of the Democrati ...

and

Ron DeSantis Ronald Dion DeSantis (; born September 14, 1978) is an American politician serving as the 46th governor of Florida since January 2019. A member of the Republican Party, DeSantis represented Florida's 6th district in the U.S. House of Represe ...

, and joined

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of ...

's legal team in 2022. Other notable clients include

Rick Scott Richard Lynn Scott ( Myers, born December 1, 1952) is an American politician serving as the junior United States senator from Florida since 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 45th governor of Florida from 2011 to 2019. Scott ...

and

Andrew Gillum Andrew Demetric Gillum (born July 26, 1979) is an American former politician who served as the 126th mayor of Tallahassee from 2014 to 2018. He served as a Tallahassee city commissioner from 2003 until 2014, first elected at the age of 23. He i ...

Early life and education

Kise was born in 1964. He graduated from

Florida State University College of Law Florida State University College of Law is the law school of Florida State University located in Tallahassee, Florida. The law school borders the southeast quadrant of the University's campus, near the Donald L. Tucker Center, an arena and part ...

in 1990 after obtaining a degree in accounting from the

University of Miami The University of Miami (UM, UMiami, Miami, U of M, and The U) is a private research university in Coral Gables, Florida. , the university enrolled 19,096 students in 12 colleges and schools across nearly 350 academic majors and programs, ...

in 1986. While studying, he also worked as the managing editor and the articles editor of the ''

Florida State University Law Review The ''Florida State University Law Review'' is the flagship law review at the Florida State University College of Law. It publishes four issues per year and is generally recognized among the top 100 student-edited law reviews in the United States. ...

.''

Career

Kise unsuccessfully ran for Senate as a Republican in the

1998 United States Senate elections The 1998 United States Senate elections were held on November 3 and seen as an even contest between the Republican Party and Democratic Party. While the Democrats had to defend more seats up for election, Republican attacks on the morality of Pr ...

. In 2002, friend

chose Kise to be second

, his term starting in 2003 and ending in 2006. Later, Kise worked as a legal advisor to Crist. He has won four

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...

cases. In 2008, he was criticised by Public Service Commissioner

Nancy Argenziano Nancy Argenziano (born January 1, 1955) is a former state legislator in Florida and served as chairman of the Florida Public Service Commission. She was the Reform Party of Florida's candidate for lieutenant governor in 2018. Personal life Arg ...

for working as the government's special adviser on energy and climate change while also representing companies responsible for pollution. Until 2016, Kise was on the board of directors of Enterprise Florida. In 2019, Kise was a transition advisor for

. Other clients have included

, and

. On August 30, 2022, Kise joined the team of lawyers supporting Donald Trump during the FBI investigation into his handling of government documents. The same day, Kise left

Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat and only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2020, the populatio ...

law firm

Foley & Lardner Foley & Lardner LLP (often referred to simply as "Foley") is an international law firm founded in 1842. In terms of revenue, it ranked 48th on The American Lawyer's 2022 AmLaw 100 rankings of U.S. law firms, with over $1 billion in gross revenue i ...

and joined

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

law firm Continental PLLC to do that work. Kise's fee for the work was US$3 million, and was paid from Trump's

Save America Save America (founded on November 9, 2020) is a leadership political action committee founded and controlled by former US president Donald Trump. It has been Trump's primary fundraising and political spending arm since he left office. History ...

PAC. A month later, Trump shifted Kise's responsibilities toward other legal work, including legal issues arising from Trump's role in the

January 6 United States Capitol attack On January 6, 2021, following the defeat of then-United States President, U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 United States presidential election, 2020 presidential election, a mob of his supporters attacked the United States Capitol, U ...

. On September 26, 2023, Kise was sanctioned along with four other attorneys for making "repetitive, frivolous" arguments on behalf of Trump and the Trump Organization in the context of New York litigation challenging alleged fraud. The court held that the attorneys had been "expressly warned" that the positions they were taking had already been repeatedly rejected by both the trial and appellate court, and concluded that "sanctions are the only way to impress upon defendants' attorneys the consequences of engaging in repetitive, frivolous motion practice after this Court, affirmed by the Appellate Division, expressly warned them against doing so."

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kise, Chris 1960s births Florida lawyers Florida State University alumni Living people Solicitors General of Florida University of Miami alumni Donald Trump attorneys

Early life and education

Career

See also

References

External links