Loretta E. Lynch

Loretta E. Lynch, the former United States Attorney General, is a partner in the Paul, Weiss Litigation Department. Ms. Lynch advises clients on government and internal investigations and on high-stakes litigation and regulatory matters.

Ms. Lynch’s legal career has included both private law practice and public service, including three presidential appointments.

Ms. Lynch served as the U.S. Attorney General from 2015-2017, where she was appointed by President Barack Obama. As Attorney General, Ms. Lynch oversaw more than 100,000 employees across numerous agencies and offices, including the 93 U.S. Attorneys; major investigative agencies, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF); the U.S. Marshals Service; the Bureau of Prisons; the National Security Division; and the Office of the Solicitor General, among others. She also supervised the DOJ’s major litigating divisions, including Antitrust, Civil, Civil Rights, Criminal, Environment and Natural Resources, and Tax.

In 1990, Ms. Lynch became an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, where she rose through the ranks, serving in the General Crimes Section as Deputy Chief (1992–93), in the Long Island Division as Chief (1994–98), and as the Chief Assistant to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York (1998–99) before being named U.S. Attorney of that office in 1999 by President Bill Clinton.

Ms. Lynch returned to private practice in 2002, where she specialized in commercial litigation, white-collar criminal defense and corporate compliance issues. During this period, Ms. Lynch also served on the Board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and was Special Counsel to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In 2010 Pres. Obama appointed Ms. Lynch once again as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, where her office would go on to prosecute major terrorism, fraud and corruption cases. In the wake of the global financial crisis, she supervised the investigations of and subsequent high-value settlements with a number of global banks stemming from the banks’ involvement in the mortgage securities market, as well as in a settlement with a global bank related to the Bank Secrecy Act.

Ms. Lynch received her J.D. and her B.A. in American Literature from Harvard University.