Michael R. Bromwich

Michael R. Bromwich brings more than 40 years of experience to the representation of corporate, individual, and public sector clients. His areas of experience are internal investigations, congressional investigations, criminal defense, crisis management, and state and federal law enforcement.

He has served at various times as a federal prosecutor (in the Southern District of New York), a special prosecutor (during the Iran-Contra affair), inspector general (for the Department of Justice), and independent monitor of Walmart, Apple, and multiple local police departments. Over the years, he has been called on frequently— by public corporations, private companies, federal, state, and local governments, cabinet secretaries, and the president of the United States—to address and solve problems of the greatest private and public significance. He has headed three major federal agencies—in the Department of Justice and the Department of the Interior.

Michael's most recent publicly disclosed representations have included the American Federation of Teachers in a congressional oversight investigation, and the City of Phoenix in a DOJ civil rights investigation. In addition, he led an investigation of allegations of institutional racism in the Boise Police Department and led a team of Steptoe lawyers in a comprehensive investigation of the largest corruption scandal in the history of the Baltimore Police Department.

In 2023, Michael represented more than 20 individual clients in two classified information-related Special Counsel investigations. Within the past year, he has represented Presidential appointees in various federal agency investigations. Michael brings to Congressional investigations his own experience of testifying more than 40 times on a variety of subjects, both as a government official and a private citizen.

In 2010, following the Gulf Oil Spill, President Obama selected Michael to head the Interior Department’s offshore drilling regulatory agency, help manage the crisis, reorganize the agency, and implement a new set of rules designed to make offshore drilling and production safer. President Obama announced Michael’s selection in the first Oval Office address of his presidency (learn more here).

From 1994-1999, Michael served as the Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Justice (DOJ), nominated by President Clinton and unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate. As the IG, Michael was DOJ's principal oversight official responsible for investigating public corruption and systemic issues relating to waste, fraud, and abuse within DOJ and its law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). His work included investigations of the FBI Laboratory, the FBI's role in the Aldrich Ames affair, the handling of classified information in the 1996 presidential election campaign finance investigation, and the DEA's involvement in the CIA-crack cocaine controversy.

From 1987-1989, Michael served as associate counsel in the Office of Independent Counsel for Iran-Contra. He was one of three courtroom lawyers for the government in the 1989 trial of United States v. Oliver L. North, one of the most significant and highly-publicized public corruption prosecutions in recent decades.  Before that, Michael served four years as an assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1983-1987), where he tried a dozen criminal cases, including cases lasting as long as two months, and argued numerous appeals.

Michael’s athletic career ended due to injuries in 1978, a few months after he finished 112^th in the 1977 New York Marathon, with a time of 2:37:18 (see here). At that point, he turned his attention to law and public service.

Michael is a member of the American Law Institute. He was honored in 2019 by the Innocence Project for his contribution to its mission over the last three decades.