Randolph D Moss

Randolph D. Moss is a partner in the firm's Regulatory and Government Affairs and  Litigation and Controversy Departments, the co-chair of the firm's Government and Regulatory Litigation Practice Group, and a member of the Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation, Complex Commercial Litigation, Public Policy and Strategy, and Defense and National Security Practice Groups. He joined the firm in 1989. Mr. Moss originally joined the firm after serving as a law clerk to the US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. From 1996 to 2001, he served as a senior official in the US Department of Justice, culminating in his appointment by the President, and confirmation by the Senate, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Since returning to the firm in 2001, Mr. Moss has focused on complex civil litigation, appellate practice, administrative and constitutional law and national security law. He was recently recognized by Washingtonian magazine as one of the top constitutional and appellate lawyers in Washington, DC. As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Moss was the principal legal adviser in the Executive Branch. He advised the Attorney General, the White House and the Executive departments on the government's most difficult and important legal questions, from the legality of taking regulatory or administrative action in unsettled areas of the law, to the constitutionality of statutes and pending legislation, to critical issues of national security law. Among other important matters, Mr. Moss issued legal opinions on the legality of the US bombing in Kosovo, whether a sitting President is subject to indictment, and the effects of Senate acquittal in an impeachment trial. He also issued opinions on a broad range of constitutional issues (including the First Amendment, due process, separation of powers and federalism), on important questions of administrative law, and on the meaning of federal laws in areas involving privacy, copyright, ethics, immigration, appropriations, Native American sovereignty, electronic surveillance, national security, the environment, antitrust, immunity from civil suit, civil rights, international trade and criminal proceedings. While at the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Moss also testified before Congress on behalf of the Executive Branch on FDA regulation of tobacco, federal preemption of state law, separation of powers and national security, and whether to amend the Constitution to ban flag desecration.