Clarke was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas. In 2003, he earned an A.B. in Government from Harvard University, where he served as the student president of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, a non-partisan organization founded by the Kennedy family in 1966 to inspire young people into careers of politics and public service. He received his law degree in 2006 from the University of Arkansas, where he graduated magna cum laude and served as Editor-in-Chief of the Arkansas Law Review. While in law school, Mr. Tucker was the champion of the Ben J. Altheimer Moot Court Competition, where he received numerous Top Oralist awards. Mr. Tucker also won the William H. Sutton Trial Competition and was a regional champion and national semi-finalist of the National Trial Competition. Upon graduation, Mr. Tucker received the Class of 2006 awards for Greatest Contribution to Legal Literature, Best Trial Advocate, and Most Likely to Succeed.
After receiving his license to practice law in 2006, Clarke served as a law clerk for the Honorable J. Leon Holmes of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas from 2006 to 2008. Clarke has been in private practice since 2008, where his primary area of practice has been litigation. He has successfully tried several jury cases involving allegations of negligence, breach of contract, fraud, and defamation. Clarke has also worked in First Amendment law, defending newspapers sued for defamation and assisting Arkansas citizens seeking public information under the Freedom of Information Act. Clarke has also worked for farmers whose crops were damaged, for small businesses in need of transactional work, and a variety of individuals and businesses in need of complex legal assistance.
Clarke is listed in The Best Lawyers in America® in Commercial Litigation, recognized as Up and Coming by Chambers USA’s Guide to America’s Leading Lawyers for Business in the area of General Commercial Litigation, recognized as a Mid-South Rising Star in Business Litigation by Super Lawyers, and named to the Under 40 Hot List and a Future Star in Litigation by Benchmark Litigation. Clarke was recognized as an emerging business leader in the 2015 “40 Under 40” list published by Arkansas Business.
In addition to his practice, Mr. Tucker served as a State Representative in the Arkansas General Assembly from 2015 through 2018. Clarke served on the committee for Judiciary and as the Chairperson of the Courts/Civil Law Permanent Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. Clarke also serves as founding Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Tiger Foundation, an organization designed to benefit and support Little Rock Central High School. A proud alumnus and former student body president, Clarke is past coach of the school’s mock trial team and serves on and is past president of its Alumni Association Board of Directors. Clarke is also a former adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law where he taught courses on Constitutional History and Law & Politics. Clarke is active at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, where he has served on the Vestry, as Chancellor, and as Senior Warden. Clarke also serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Just Communities of Arkansas and of the Arkansas Imagination Library, and he is the founder of the Pulaski County Imagination Library, a program working in conjunction with Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library to deliver age appropriate books to all children in Pulaski County between birth and age 5.
Clarke is admitted to practice before the U.S. District Courts for the Western and Eastern Districts of Arkansas; the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals; and all Arkansas State Courts.