Richard A Hertling

Richard Hertling advises clients in the technology, defense and other industries on regulatory and legislative matters involving intellectual property, cyber-security, financial services and immigration. His experience includes work related to the expected overhaul of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act Internet sales tax, and patent reform, and music licensing. Mr. Hertling is the former staff director and chief counsel on the House Judiciary Committee. He has more than 25 years of public policy experience from serving in leadership roles on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Justice Department, in addition to the House Judiciary panel. He is widely respected for his ability to build strategic alliances on both sides of the aisle to move legislation forward. From 2003 to 2007, Mr. Hertling served a variety of leadership roles at the Justice Department, including acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legislative Affairs and principal deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy. He was the domestic and legal policy advisor to Senator Fred Thompson's presidential campaign before returning to Capitol Hill in 2008 to serve on the House Judiciary Committee first as the minority deputy chief of staff then deputy chief of staff and finally as the staff director and chief counsel. After earning his law degree, Mr. Hertling served as a trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Civil Division for three years before joining the Senate Judiciary Committee. Over the course of seven years on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Hertling served as chief counsel and staff director for three subcommittees. His tenure on Capitol Hill included two stints on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee where he served as minority staff director for Senator Fred Thompson and as senior counsel during the campaign fundraising investigation of the 1996 presidential election. He also served as chief of staff to former Senator Peter Fitzgerald of Illinois. Before entering private practice, Mr. Hertling served as Staff Director and Chief Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary. During President George W. Bush’s Administration, Mr. Hertling served in the United States Department of Justice for four years, including service as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy and Acting Assistant Attorney General for Legislative Affairs. Before entering the Bush Administration, Mr. Hertling served as the Republican Staff Director of the United States Senate’s Committee on Governmental Affairs. Earlier, he served as Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology & the Law. Mr. Hertling has served as a staffer to four United States Senators: Lamar Alexander, Arlen Specter, Fred Thompson, and Peter Fitzgerald. Before entering the legislative branch, Mr. Hertling spent more than three years as a trial attorney in the Federal Programs Branch within the Department of Justice’s Civil Division. Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Hertling served as a law clerk to Judge Henry A. Politz of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Mr. Hertling earned his B.A., with honors and magna cum laude, from Brown University and his J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.