Eli Kay-Oliphant: Chicago Lawyer, Career and Marriage

Eli Kay-Oliphant is a Chicago-based trial attorney and partner at the law firm Sparacino PLLC. He received his law degree from Emory University School of Law in 2005, has been practicing law since 2006, and handles commercial fraud, class action lawsuits (in which multiple victims file a joint lawsuit), and other high-profile business disputes. Many readers know him because he is married to actress Marina Squerciati, who plays Officer Kim Burgess on the NBC TV series Chicago P.D. He is not an actor himself and keeps his personal life private. This article reports what reliable public sources confirm about his career and marriage, and explicitly states where information is lacking.

Eli Kay-Oliphant at a Glance

Who Is Eli Kay-Oliphant?

Eli Kay-Oliphant is an American lawyer based in Chicago. He is a partner at Sparacino PLLC, practicing business litigation on behalf of companies and individuals. Much of his public fame is due not to his own media appearances but to his marriage to Marina Squerciati.

His basic biographical information is not as detailed as many websites suggest. His date of birth, parents, and siblings are not listed in any of the bar registers, firm biographical profiles, or major news profiles reviewed for this article, and the websites that do publish these details are inconsistent. Therefore, they have not been included here, rather than being guessed at.

A note about the spelling of the name: Official profiles spell the family name Kay-Oliphant, with an “i.” Searches for “Olyphant” often return results for actor Timothy Olyphant. The sources reviewed do not provide any evidence linking the two individuals.

Education and Early Legal Career

According to his profile on Super Lawyers, Eli Kay-Oliphant graduated with honors from Emory University School of Law in 2005 and began practicing law in 2006. His firm biographical profile also states that he was the editor-in-chief of the Emory Law Journal, a journal edited by law school students.

Lawyer directories list Northwestern University as his bachelor’s degree, the same university where Squerciati attended. According to entertainment news sources, the two met at Northwestern.

According to a legal directory, which cites his firm’s biographical profile, he served as a law clerk to Judge W. Eugene Davis of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The profile then mentions associate positions at Latham & Watkins in New York and O’Melveny & Myers in Washington, D.C. According to Avvo, his admissions to the New York (2006) and District of Columbia (2007) bars correspond in that order.

He later became a partner at the Chicago litigation firm Massey & Gail LLP and then joined Sparacino. According to some websites, he co-founded Massey & Gail in 2014. The firm’s biographical introduction only states that he was a partner there, so this article will only state that.

Legal Practice at Sparacino PLLC

Sparacino PLLC has offices in Washington, D.C. and Chicago. Many low-quality biographical websites list it as a Washington, D.C. firm and give the impression that they operate there, but their registered office is in Chicago.

According to their firm’s biographical profile, they handle complex contract disputes, commercial fraud, and business torts (losses arising from business transactions for which damages can be claimed outside of a contract), as well as mass actions and class action cases in state and federal courts. They have represented both defendants and plaintiffs, and have handled arbitrations before JAMS and the American Arbitration Association (AAA). The profile cites experience in financial services, aviation, energy, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, online technology, and media, and notes that they have recently won appeals in the Seventh Circuit and the Illinois Court of Appeals.

Super Lawyers lists their practice areas as: civil defense, class action and collective tort defense, alternative dispute resolution, appellate work, aviation and aerospace, and banking. It has selected them each year from 2022 to 2026. Super Lawyers is a private ranking service that claims to select the top 5 percent of lawyers. It is not a judicial or government award, and should be considered an indication of the opinions of fellow lawyers, not evidence of the outcome of cases.

This article provides general information and is not legal advice. Before hiring any lawyer, you should verify their licensing status with the relevant state’s bar regulator.

Marina Squerciati and Eli Kay-Oliphant: What Is Known About the Marriage

Squerciati is an American actress who has played Officer Kim Burgess on Chicago P.D. since the show’s debut in 2014. Her Wikipedia page lists her as married to Eli Kay-Oliphant, an attorney.

According to entertainment news sources including SheKnows and Distractify, the couple met while attending Northwestern University and have been married since 2016. Other websites give the year as 2015 or early 2017. No marriage records or announcements from the couple confirm this, so the wedding year is likely around 2016. According to Wikipedia, Squerciati announced her pregnancy on February 15, 2017, and sources say their daughter was born in May of that year.

The couple keeps their family life low-key and private. SheKnows reports that Squerciati does not share photos of her husband on social media or talk about him publicly. Neither of them has publicly confirmed their daughter’s name, so names circulating online are not repeated here. Similarly, rumors about either of them’s past relationships come from unreliable websites and are also not repeated.

Eli Kay-Oliphant Net Worth

No reliable source publishes his net worth. His compensation is not disclosed as he is a partner in a private firm, and there are no public documents that can be analyzed. Several celebrity biography websites publish round-figure estimates, but no tax records, property records, or financial statements are cited. Any amount without them is a guess and should be considered unverified.

What Remains Unconfirmed

• Date of birth, parents, and siblings: Websites that list them disagree, and no primary source supports them.
• Date and place of marriage: Reports vary from 2015 to early 2017.
• Children: The birth of a daughter in 2017 is widely reported, but there is no reference to other claims regarding the number of children or their names.
• Social responsibilities: Some biographical websites list membership on the boards of Chicago Debates and the Art Institute of Chicago, but this could not be verified on those organizations’ own pages.
• Claims about lawsuits: Directory profiles mention specific lawsuits and awards. Check court records or the firm’s website before relying on any of these.

The Result

Eli Kay-Oliphant is best described as a practicing attorney who happens to be married to a television actress. His verifiable record includes a law degree from Emory in 2005, a 2006 law degree, a partner position at Sparacino PLLC in Chicago, and a Super Lawyers selection from 2022 to 2026. For anything beyond that, rely on firm biographical profiles and lawyer registries rather than celebrity biographical websites, as many of them copy and paste and even contradict basic facts.