O’Melveny & Myers LLP welcomes back Danielle Gray as a litigation partner. Gray will split her time between the Firm’s New York and Washington, DC, offices starting next month.
In her service to the Obama Administration, Gray has held a number of senior legal and policy roles, most recently as President Obama’s chief liaison to his Cabinet. Heralded by the President for her “brilliant legal mind, her mastery of complex policy, her sense of humor, [and] her fundamental decency,” Gray brings a wealth of knowledge and experience on a range of policy areas, including health care, consumer financial services, innovation and technology, and labor. Her familiarity with these issues, coupled with her experience offering strategic advising and crisis management services at the highest levels of government, makes her ideally suited to counsel clients on high-stakes enforcement, regulatory, and compliance problems.
Gray will be a member of O’Melveny’s Financial Services Practice Group and will provide counseling to financial institutions, health-care companies, and other consumer financial services companies on complex regulatory problems and litigation. Gray will also play an active role in the Firm’s Appellate and White Collar and Corporate Investigations Practices. And building on her track record of service, Gray will join O’Melveny’s Community Legal Services Committee, with the mission of developing additional high-impact pro bono legal service opportunities for the Firm.
“We are thrilled to have a lawyer of Danielle’s caliber and reputation rejoin O’Melveny after years of dedicated public service, which is a hallmark of our Firm,” said Bradley J. Butwin, chair of O’Melveny. “Her unique perspective on the inner workings of the government and record for sound strategic guidance will enhance the service we provide clients dealing with an increasingly challenging regulatory environment.”
Gray began serving in the Obama Administration as Associate Counsel to the President in the Office of the White House Counsel. In that role, she served as one of the principal lawyers advising on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and played a lead role in judicial selection and confirmation proceedings — including the successful confirmation processes for Justices Sotomayor and Kagan. She acted as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Division at the Department of Justice, assisting in the defense of the ACA against constitutional and other challenges and representing the United States in a range of civil matters. Later, as Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, Gray participated in key economic policy decisions, including implementation of the Dodd-Frank legislation, regulatory policy and reform, and a variety of job-creation and skills initiatives for veterans, small-business owners, and entrepreneurs. In her last position as Cabinet Secretary, she was responsible for policy and communications coordination among all Cabinet-level agencies and worked closely with Executive Branch agencies on a range of high-stakes matters — from congressional investigations to the promulgation of rules and regulations.
Gray was a litigation associate in O’Melveny’s Washington, DC, office before leaving to clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. She earned a B.A. from Duke University in 2000 and her J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2003, where she served as an editor of the Harvard Law Review.
