Vadim Klyuvgant

Since spring 2007, Vadim Klyuvgant has served as the lead trial lawyer on the defense team for Mikhail Khodorkovsky in Russia.

Since 2005, Mr. Klyuvgant has been practicing law to defend the rights and interests of his clients, which include large corporations, individuals and religious organizations. He has managed to obtain acquittals from Russian courts and have several cases terminated on rehabilitating grounds. Mr. Klyuvgant also represented the victims of an anti-Semitic attack, of which both the Supreme Court of Russia and Moscow City Court ruled in their favor. This case has served as a precedent for subsequent criminal cases of religious extremism.

From 1995-2004, Mr. Klyuvgant served as a top executive in various Russian companies, including NOSTA, TNK, and SIDANKO His sphere of responsibility included legal issues, safety and protection of assets, public relations and relations with state agencies, project management, risk management and international cooperation.

From 1990, Mr. Klyuvgant was elected to the Congress of the People's Deputies of the Russian Federation (RF). From 1990 until 1993, he served as a member of the upper House of the Russian Parliament, the Constitutional Commission and the Constitutional Council of the RF. As the Executive Secretary of the Committee for Issues of Legality, Law and Order, and Fighting Crime, Mr. Klyuvgant directly participated in the development of laws on the investigative committee, police and procuracy and in the preparation of judicial reform. In late 1991, still a member of the Congress of the People's Deputies of the RF, Mr. Klyuvgant became Mayor of Magnitogorsk and worked successfully in this position during the four most difficult years of Russia's post-Soviet history.

In 2003, Mr. Klyuvgant successfully defended his theses "The Congress of People's Deputies and Supreme Soviet of the RF in the Political History of the Country" and earned a PhD in Historic Sciences. He has appeared on numerous occasions in the Russian and international press.

Mr. Klyuvgant was born in 1958 in the town of Magnitogorsk. In 1979, he graduated cum laude from the Sverdlovsk Law Institute, after which he served for ten years as a criminal investigator and later became the head of the investigative department of his home town.