Lisa Brown

Elizabeth Merrill "Lisa" Brown (born March 6, 1960) is an American lawyer who was the General Counsel of the United States Department of Education. She previously served as the first White House Staff Secretary in the Obama administration, assuming that post on January 20, 2009. Earlier, during the 2008–2009 presidential transition, she served as Co-Chair of Agency Review. Prior to joining the Obama Transition Team, she served as Executive Director of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal organization.

After President Obama's 2011 State of the Union Address, Brown joined the Office of Management and Budget to assist the ambitious effort to draft a government reorganization proposal. In March 2013, she left the White House to become chief legal counsel to Georgetown University as Vice President and General Counsel. and attended the prestigious Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. A 1982 Magna Cum Laude Princeton University graduate with a B.A. in Political Economy, Brown earned a J.D. degree with Honors from the University of Chicago Law School

Private sector and pro bono work Before entering government service, Brown was a Partner in the Washington, D.C., law firm Shea & Gardner; while litigating and doing transactional work for the firm's paying clients, she also had a substantial pro bono practice focusing on disability issues, civil rights and social justice. She wrote briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court and federal circuit courts in disability cases under The Fair Housing Amendments Act of 1988. She also reviewed appeals by rejected claimants in Dyson v. Denny's, Inc. (D. Md.), serving as the court-appointed Special Master. She was co-editor for the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless of Cold, Harsh and Unending Resistance: The District of Columbia Government's Hidden War Against Its Poor and Its Homeless (November 22, 1993), a report on social services litigation. who directs the University of Maryland's cancer center. They have one son.