Kaplan, Gary H.

Todd Stern, former Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary and Counselor to the Secretary of the Treasury, is Vice Chair of the firm's Public Policy and Strategy Practice. His practice focuses on public policy advice, congressional investigations, strategic counseling, crisis management and anti-money laundering.

Practice

Mr. Stern concentrates on advising clients on matters that lie at the intersection of law, public policy, politics and media. He counsels companies, industry coalitions and other institutions on a wide variety of public policy issues. He has represented clients in numerous House and Senate investigations. He has provided strategic advice to companies and institutions regarding problems that carry significant political or public relations risk. He has also frequently advised on crisis management matters, including advising on the development and execution of media strategy that is sensitive to both underlying legal concerns and public relations imperatives. In addition, Mr. Stern has advised banks, broker-dealers, insurance companies and other financial institutions on anti-money laundering matters, including compliance, the development of government regulations, and enforcement.

Mr. Stern served in the White House from 1993 to 1999. As Staff Secretary, he played a central role in preparing the key issues of domestic, economic and national security policy for the President’s decision, as well as handling a number of special assignments, such as the management of contested nominations. He also coordinated the Administration’s initiative on global climate change from 1997 to 1999, acting as the senior White House negotiator at the Kyoto and Buenos Aires negotiations. At Treasury, from 1999 to 2001, Mr. Stern advised the Secretary on the policy and politics of a broad range of economic and financial issues, and supervised Treasury’s anti-money laundering strategy. Mr. Stern also served as Senior Counsel to Senator Patrick Leahy on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he advised Senator Leahy on intellectual property, telecommunications and constitutional issues.

Professional Activities

After leaving the government, Mr. Stern was an Adjunct Lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government on the relationship between Congress and the Executive Branch, and he was also a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Mr. Stern is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress.