Partner
Covington & Burling
Eric H. Holder, Jr. has joined Covington & Burling as a partner. Holder, who most recently served as Deputy Attorney General of the United States, will handle complex civil and criminal cases, domestic and international advisory matters, and internal corporate investigations. He is resident in the firm’s Washington, DC office where he will play a major role in the firm’s litigation practice, which focuses on disputes in the antitrust, employment, insurance coverage, intellectual property, product liability, and securities areas, which includes some of the leading white-collar defense lawyers in the country.
A native of New York City, Holder is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School, Columbia College, and Columbia Law School. Over the past 25 years, he has served in a variety of government positions, beginning his career as a prosecutor in the United States Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section. In 1988, he was appointed to the bench by President Reagan and served until 1993 as Associate Judge of the Superior Court for the District of Columbia. From 1993 to 1997, Holder was United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, where he was the District’s chief prosecutor and headed the largest U.S. Attorney’s office in the country.
In 1997, President Clinton appointed Holder to serve as Deputy Attorney General, which is the number two position in the United States Department of Justice. He held that position until the recent transition and briefly served under President Bush as Acting Attorney General pending the confirmation of Attorney General John Ashcroft. As Deputy Attorney General, Holder supervised all of the Department’s litigation, enforcement, and administrative components in both civil and criminal matters.
His community activities include service on the boards of the Meyer Foundation, the See Forever Foundation, and the I Am Your Child Foundation. He is also a long-time member of the organization, Concerned Black Men.