Lisa Monaco
Partner
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Lisa O. Monaco, co-chair of O’Melveny’s Data Security and Privacy group and a member of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations Practice Group, served as Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor to President Obama and before that as Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department, the Department’s top national security lawyer. Drawing on her experience as an advisor at the highest level of government, she counsels clients on the business, legal, and policy issues surrounding privacy and cybersecurity, as well as on government and regulatory affairs. Lisa works out of both the firm’s Washington, DC* and New York offices.
As the President’s Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Advisor from 2013-2017, she coordinated the federal government’s crisis management and response to a wide array of risks and challenges – from cyber threats and pandemics to terrorist threats – and chaired the Cabinet-level Homeland Security Council Principals Committee and advised the President on homeland security issues and crises. She has extensive experience in policy development and crisis management having operated at the senior- most levels of the Federal government as a lawyer and advisor.
Before her service in the White House, Lisa spent 15 years at the Department of Justice and FBI under the Administrations of President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama. As counsel and then Chief of Staff at the FBI, she helped then-Director Robert S. Mueller, III, transform that organization after 9/11 into a national security organization focused on preventing terrorist attacks on the United States. In 2009, she joined the Justice Department’s senior leadership in the Deputy Attorney General’s office. As the Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, she was the Deputy Attorney General’s primary advisor on a range of criminal policy, law enforcement, national security and civil litigation matters and she assisted in overall management and supervision of the Department, including the United States Attorney’s Offices. In 2011, she was nominated by the President and confirmed by the United States Senate as Assistant Attorney General for National Security, the first woman to serve in that position. She led the National Security Division’s nearly 400 lawyers and professional staff and oversaw all federal terrorism and national security prosecutions nationwide. During her tenure she made cyber threats a top priority and created the first nationwide network of national security cyber specialists.
Lisa spent six years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia prosecuting a range of cases, from violent crime to fraud and public corruption. Her time as an AUSA includes service on the Enron Task Force, a group of federal prosecutors drawn from around the country to investigate and prosecute the fraud at Enron. She received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, the Department’s highest award for her service on the Enron Task Force.
She has received numerous awards in recognition of her public service career including the Department of Justice Edmund J. Randolph Award, the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the CIA Director’s Award. She has been recognized internationally for her work with key allies and foreign governments; in 2017 the President of the Republic of France named her an Officer of the French Legion of Honor.
Earlier in her career, Lisa served as Counsel to the Attorney General. She began her legal career as a law clerk to the Honorable Jane R. Roth on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Lisa’s experience extends to the board room as a member of the board of Accenture Federal Services; Cognosante LLC; and the non-profit organization, Hostage US.
Lisa is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at New York University Law School’s Reiss Center on Law & Security and Center for Cybersecurity; a nonresident senior fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center on Science and International Affairs, and a principal with WestExec Advisors. She co-chairs the Aspen Institute’s Cybersecurity Group, a cross-disciplinary group of industry, former government, Capitol Hill, academic and civil society leaders focused on cybersecurity. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 2017 Governor Andrew Cuomo named Lisa to a bipartisan Counterterrorism Advisory Panel for the State of New York. Lisa is also a member of the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. A regular voice in national publications on national security and cybersecurity; she is a Senior National Security Analyst for CNN.
Corporate & Government Experience
- Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
- Assistant Attorney General for National Security
- Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General
- Associate Deputy Attorney General
- Chief of Staff, Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Special Counsel to the Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation
- Assistant United States Attorney, Enron Task Force
- Assistant United States Attorney, US Attorney’s Office, Washington, DC
- Counsel to the Attorney General
- Principal, WestExec Advisors
Honors & Awards
- Edmund J. Randolph Award, United States Department of Justice
- Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service
- Officer of the Legion of Honor of France, Awarded by the President of the Republic of France
- National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service Medal
- Director’s Award, Central Intelligence Agency
- Bar Association of the District of Columbia Lifetime Achievement Award
- Distinguished Alumna Award, University of Chicago Law School
Admissions
Bar Admissions
- New York
*Admitted only in New York; supervised by principals of the firm.
Education
- University of Chicago Law School, JD, editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Law School Roundtable
- Harvard University, BA
Professional Activities
Clerkships
- Honorable Jane R. Roth, US Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
Member
- Co-Chair, Aspen Institute Cybersecurity Group
- Distinguished Senior Fellow, NYU School of Law, Reiss Center on Law and Security and Center for Cybersecurity
- Senior Fellow, Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Homeland Security Program
- Council on Foreign Relations
- American Law Institute
- University of Chicago Law School Council
- Advisory Board, National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School
- New York State Bipartisan Counterterrorism Advisory Panel
- Bipartisan Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense
Selected Speeches
- Remarks at the University of Chicago Law School, 530th Convocation, June 10, 2017
- Remarks at International Conference on Cybersecurity, Fordham University, July 26, 2016
- Keynote Address, Intelligence & National Security in American Society, Univ. of Texas-Austin, March 30, 2016
- The Kenneth A. Moskow Memorial Lecture, Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, DC, March 6, 2016
- Cyber Threats & Vulnerabilities, Securing America’s Most Important Assets, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, DC, February 10, 2015
Articles/Op-Eds
- “We’ve Declared War on Foreign Terrorism, Why Not Do the Same for Domestic Terrorism,” Washington Post (November 2018)
- “The Next Pandemic Will Be Arriving Shortly,” Foreign Policy (September 2018)
- “A ‘global game of whack-a-mole’: Overseas data rules are stuck in the 19th century,” Washington Post (March 5, 2018)
- “The Next Phase in the War on Terror,” Lawfare (November 6, 2017)
- “Preventing the Next Attack: A Strategy for the War on Terrorism,” Foreign Affairs (November/December 2017)
- “The Next Front in the U.S. Fight Against ISIS,” The New York Times (May 11, 2017)
- “Attention Team Trump: Globalism works in fighting terror,” CNN Op-Ed (May 9, 2017)
- “The Dangers of Walling Off America,” Lawfare (February 6, 2017)
Public Appearances
- Cyber Risk: Who’s Job is It Anyway?, Global Cyber Innovation Summit (May 1, 2019)
- Interview with NPR Weekend Edition, On Drone Strikes Transparency (March 10, 2019)
- National Security Challenges Facing the United States, University of Akron (March 7, 2019)
- New Rules: Comparing the California Consumer Privacy Act and the EU GDPR, RSA Conference 2019, (March 5, 2019)
- Artificial Intelligence: National Security & Defense, AI Policy Congress, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (January 2019)
- State of the Union with Jake Tapper, CNN (February 24, 2019)
- Intelligence Matters Podcast, Former Homeland Security Advisor on Today’s Threat Landscape, CBS (January 2, 2019)
- Aspen Cyber Summit, A Cyber Agenda for 2019 (November 8, 2018)
- The New Front Line of Defense: Security in a Post-9/11 World, 9/11 Memorial Museum Security Summit (November 2018)
- Brennan Center for Justice, Politics & Prosecutors: Where Will the Special Counsel Investigation Lead Us? (October 24, 2018)
- Cloudflare Internet Summit, Cyber the New Frontier in State Warfare (October 4, 2018)
- Washington Post Cybersecurity Summit, America’s Cybersecurity Posture (October 2, 2018)
- State of the Union with Jake Tapper, CNN (August 19, 2018)
- Aspen Security Forum, Confronting Global Cyber Threats (July 19, 2018)
- Stay Tuned with Preet, On Criminal Justice (June 21, 2018)
- Resilient World, On Tackling Transnational Threats, Terrorism and Cybersecurity Atlantic Council (June 6, 2018)
- The Lawfare Podcast, On protecting the 2018 election (April 24, 2018)
- Dartmouth College, Dickey Center Lecture (February 2018)
- Cape Up with Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post (January 16, 2018)
- The President’s Inbox, Council on Foreign Relations (November 30, 2017)
- C-SPAN Washington Journal, US Counterterrorism Efforts (November 15, 2017)
- Bloomberg Next: The Connected Future, Trusting the News: From Politics to National Security (October 24, 2017)
- Stay Tuned with Preet, Behind Closed Doors: Advising Obama and Mueller (September 27, 2017)
- Duke University, Terry Sanford Distinguished Lecture (September 13, 2017)
- The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN (August 25, 2017)
- Axios Smarter Faster, On Fighting ISIS and Social Media (July 25, 2017)
- Aspen Ideas Festival, America’s Online Enemies, (July 1, 2017)
- The Lead with Jake Tapper, CNN (May 17, 2017)
- The Axe Files (April 17, 2017)
- The President: Conflict with Syria, North Korea Testing Boundaries, with Anderson Cooper, CNN (April 10, 2017)
- The Global Politico (April 3, 2017)
- Pod Save the World (February 2017)
- Interview with Charlie Rose (February 2, 2017)
- The Internet of Broken Things: Future Challenges of Global Cybersecurity, Aspen Institute, (January 13, 2017)
- Council on Foreign Relations, Remarks on Counterterrorism, Cybersecurity and Homeland Security (January 8, 2017)
- Interview with NPR, Homeland Security Advisor on Russian Cyber Activity (December 16, 2016)
- Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Discussing Election Security, CSPAN (December 9, 2016)
- Keynote Address, The National Security Division at 10, Center for Strategic and International Studies (September 19, 2016)
- Aspen Security Forum, The View from the West Wing, Aspen Institute (July 30, 2016)
- Aspen Security Global Forum, London, Counterterrorism in the Age of ISIL (April 22, 2016)
- Interview with Charlie Rose (September 30, 2015)
- Aspen Institute, The Future of Cyber Threats (June 23, 2015)