NFDA Names Chris Farmer as General Counsel

Brookfield, Wis. – The National Funeral Directors Association (NFDA) is pleased to announce that Christopher L. Farmer will join the association’s staff as its new general counsel. He will assume his duties on January 1, 2022, following the retirement of T. Scott Gilligan on December 31, 2021.

“After an extensive search, I am proud to welcome Chris Farmer to the NFDA staff,” said NFDA CEO Christine Pepper, MBA, CAE. “Chris has the ideal combination of corporate experience and broad knowledge of the funeral service profession and industry. I have no doubt he will provide sound legal advice and guidance to the association. He will also be a tremendous value and resource for our members, offering legal advice and much more.”

In his role as general counsel, Farmer will continue to offer complimentary legal advice to members – one of NFDA’s valued member benefits. He will also continue to maintain NFDA’s extensive library of legal forms, present educational programs on behalf of the association, manage NFDA’s GPL review service, work with the NFDA Professional Conduct Committee and much more. Farmer will join the NFDA staff on October 15 and will work with Gilligan during the coming months to ensure a smooth transition.

Farmer comes to NFDA after establishing his own legal practice, The Farmer Firm, which is dedicated to supporting funeral, crematory, and cemetery service providers and suppliers in corporate matters, mergers and acquisitions, commercial litigation, employment, consumer litigation, banking, state and federal regulatory matters, and more.

Farmer’s wide-ranging experience in the funeral service profession includes roles such as financial and business management consultant for The Foresight Companies; director of corporate development for Carriage Services; general counsel for the Cremation Association of North America and the Texas Funeral Directors Association; and corporate counsel for Service Corporation International.

Farmer has presented extensively at funeral service education events and written numerous articles for trade publications. He graduated from Purdue University with his bachelor’s degree in Psychology and his law degree from the University of Houston Law Center.

NFDA members will have an opportunity to meet Farmer during the NFDA International Convention & Expo, October 17-20 in Nashville.

“Over the years I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with various members of the NFDA Board of Directors and staff, as well as association members, and couldn’t be happier to be joining such a well-respected funeral service association,” said Farmer. “I am grateful for the opportunity and am looking forward to doing all that I can to serve NFDA and its members.”

NFDA is the world’s leading and largest funeral service association, serving more than 20,000 individual members who represent nearly 11,000 funeral homes in the United States and 49 countries around the world. NFDA is the trusted leader, beacon for ethics and the strongest advocate for the profession. NFDA is the association of choice because it offers funeral professionals comprehensive educational resources, tools to manage successful businesses, guidance to become pillars in their communities and the expertise to foster future generations of funeral professionals. NFDA is headquartered in Brookfield, Wis., and has an office in Washington, D.C. For more information, visit www.nfda.org.