Lisa Brown ’82 nominated to serve as general counsel of the U.S. Department of Education

Brown has extensive experience in public service, serving during the Obama administration as assistant to the President and staff secretary, and then as acting chief performance officer at the Office of Management and Budget. During the Clinton administration, Brown served as a career lawyer in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice and then became counsel to Vice President Gore, where she also served as a member of the executive board of the President’s Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities. Between the two administrations, Brown was executive director of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, and during the 2008 election, she became co-director of Agency Review for the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

Brown graduated magna cum laude from Princeton with a degree in political economy and earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School. She clerked for the Honorable John C. Godbold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Montgomery, Alabama, and became a partner at the Washington law firm of Shea & Gardner.

Brown joined Georgetown as vice president and general counsel in 2013, providing legal counsel to the University’s president, board of directors, and senior academic and administrative officers; serves in the president’s cabinet; and mentors first generation college students and students interested in law and social justice. She also serves on the board of trustees of the Center for Law and Social Policy, DC Theatre Lab and SMYAL (Supporting and Mentoring Youth Advocates and Leaders).