After graduating from law school, Markus returned home to Cleveland and clerked for U.S. District Judge
Alvin Krenzler from 1984 to 1986. He then worked at an Ohio law firm doing plaintiff's civil rights work and representing labor unions from 1986 to 1989, while also serving as an adjunct law professor at
Cleveland–Marshall College of Law from 1986 to 1988. He left to manage then-State Senator
Lee Fisher's campaign for
Ohio Attorney General, and subsequently served as Fisher's Chief of Staff. Two years later, Markus became the Executive Director and Chief of Staff at the
Democratic National Committee before joining the
United States Department of Justice in 1994. At the
Department of Justice, Markus worked as Counsel to Deputy Attorney General
Jamie Gorelick in 1994, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Acting Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs from 1995 to 1996. He then served as Counselor to Attorney General
Janet Reno and Deputy Chief of Staff from 1996 to 1998. Upon the birth of his son, he returned to Ohio where he founded the National Center for Adoption Law & Policy at Capital University Law School and taught what was at that time the nation's only regular law school class regarding the law of adoption. The Center is known, today, as the Family and Youth Law Center at Capital University Law School.
Nomination to the Sixth Circuit On February 9, 2000,
Bill Clinton nominated Markus to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to take the place of
David Aldrich Nelson, who had assumed
senior status. With the
U.S. Senate controlled by Republicans during Clinton's second term, Markus' nomination languished. Despite Markus waging a high-profile lobbying effort to win confirmation to the Sixth Circuit seat and the fact that he had the support of both of his home-state Republican senators, no hearing was ever scheduled on his nomination by the
U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, and no confirmation vote ever was taken by the full Senate. When
George W. Bush became president in 2001, he subsequently withdrew 62 executive and judicial nominations, including that of Markus. In 2001, Bush nominated
Jeffrey Sutton to the seat to which Markus had been nominated. Sutton was confirmed on April 29, 2003.
Later career On January 8, 2007, Ohio Gov.
Ted Strickland announced that Markus would be taking a leave of absence from Capital University to serve as
Ted Strickland's Chief Legal Counsel. He later also served as Counselor to the Governor. Markus' name came up as a possible interim replacement for former Ohio Attorney General
Marc Dann, who resigned from office on May 14, 2008. In January 2009, Markus suggested that he be nominated by President
Barack Obama to the
United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. However, in July 2009, Ohio Sen.
Sherrod Brown announced that he would be recommending then-U.S. Magistrate Judge
Timothy Black for the seat. The Senate confirmed Black in May 2010. In the Spring of 2011, Markus became the Deputy Director for Enforcement at the newly-established
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He became the Bureau's Enforcement Director in January 2012. In February 2015, Markus became a Senior Advisor at the Bureau in the Office of the Director. He was succeeded as Enforcement Director by Tony Alexis. == Personal life ==