Raj De is the managing partner of Mayer Brown's Washington DC office, which is comprised of more than two hundred lawyers. He leads the firm's global Cybersecurity & Data Privacy practice, as well as the firm’s National Security practice, and serves as a member of the firm’s Congressional Investigations & Crisis Management team. After nearly two decades in private practice and public service across all three branches of the United States government,

Mr. De is one of the most trusted voices in Washington. He has held senior appointments in the White House, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Department of Defense (DOD). Mr. De returned to Mayer Brown in 2015 after serving as General Counsel at the United States National Security Agency (NSA). Since returning to the firm, Mr. De has received numerous recognitions, including by American Lawyer (“Lateral All-Star”), Washingtonian magazine (“Top Lawyer”), The National Law Journal (“Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Trailblazer”), and Cybersecurity Docket (“Incident Response 30”). Mr. De focuses his practice on cutting-edge legal and policy issues at the nexus of technology, national security, law enforcement and privacy. He advises clients, including management teams and boards of directors, in connection with crisis management, government and internal investigations, high-stakes litigation, regulatory enforcement matters, and congressional inquiries. Mr. De provides clients with strategic counseling and practical legal advice, drawing upon a wealth of experience in government service and private practice.

As General Counsel of the NSA, Mr. De served as the agency’s chief legal officer and senior advisor to the NSA Director. He supervised an office of approximately one hundred lawyers and staff that provides legal advice across a range of issue areas, including foreign intelligence, cybersecurity, government contracts, intellectual property, research and technology, administrative law, government ethics and pending legislation. Mr. De represented the agency regularly with senior officials across the executive branch, as well as before the United States Congress, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and foreign governments.

Prior to his service at the NSA, Mr. De served in the White House as Staff Secretary and Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States. In that capacity, he was responsible for managing all written material provided to the President. Prior to his White House role, Mr. De served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice. In that capacity, he worked closely with the Attorney General and senior DOJ leadership, litigating components and enforcement agencies on policy development and implementation across subject areas that included civil rights, criminal justice, national security and civil litigation. Mr. De started his career at DOJ, where he was a trial lawyer in the Antitrust Division under the Attorney General’s Honors Program.

Mr. De has also had significant congressional experience over the course of his career. He served as Counsel to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the “9/11 Commission”), conducting scores of interviews with United States government and foreign officials and drafting sections of the 9/11 Commission’s widely recognized final public report. After his service to the 9/11 Commission, he served as Counsel to a special bipartisan staff of the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, where he was a primary drafter and negotiator of the intelligence reform legislation that implemented the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations for the appointment of a Director of National Intelligence and the establishment of a National Counterterrorism Center. During his earlier time as a partner at Mayer Brown, Mr. De served on a pro bono basis as General Counsel to the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel charged with making recommendations to the President and Congress.

Earlier in his career, Mr. De clerked for the Honorable A. Wallace Tashima of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Pasadena, California. He graduated magna cum laude from both Harvard Law School and Harvard College.