Loretta E. Lynch was appointed by President Barack Obama on May 03, 2010, and took the oath of office as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York from Chief United States District Judge Raymond J. Dearie. In that capacity, she is responsible for overseeing all federal and civil investigations and cases in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island, as well as Na**au and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. She supervises a staff of approximately 170 attorneys and 150 support personnel.
Before joining the U.S. Attorney's office in 1990, Ms. Lynch practiced law as a litigation a**ociate for a leading New York based firm. She began her career in the Eastern District prosecuting narcotics and violent crime cases. Ms. Lynch served as Chief of the Long Island Office from 1994 to 1998, after serving as the Deputy Chief of General Crimes and as Chief of Intake and Arraignments for the district. While in the Long Island office, she prosecuted white collar crime and public corruption cases, and was the lead prosecutor in a series of trials involving allegations of public corruption in the Long Island town of Brookhaven. Ms Lynch also served the district as Chief Assistant, where she was a member of the trial team in United States v. Volpe, et al., a five-week civil rights case involving the s**ual a**ault by uniformed New York City police officers upon Haitian immigrant Abner Louima.
Ms. Lynch was appointed by President William Jefferson Clinton as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, serving from 1999 to 2001. While U.S. Attorney, Ms. Lynch was a member of the Attorney General's Advisory Committee, serving as Co-Chair of the White Collar Crime Subcommittee. She was a frequent instructor for the Department of Justice in their Criminal Trial Advocacy Program and served as an Adjunct Professor at St. John's University School of Law.
Before returning to the office as United States Attorney in 2010, Ms. Lynch was a partner in the New York office of Hogan & Hartson, L.L.P. and was a member of the firm's Litigation Group. Her practice focused on commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense, and corporate compliance issues. While at Hogan, Ms. Lynch also served as Special Counsel to the Prosecutor of the ICTR, and conducted a special investigation into allegations of witness tampering and false testimony at the Tribunal.
Ms. Lynch received her A.B., cum laude, from Harvard College in 1981. She received her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1984, where she was an advisor to the first year moot court competition and a member of the Legal Aid Bureau and Harvard Black Law Student Association.