Bio

Michael Dreeben is a member of the Supreme Court and Appellate Litigation Group and White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations Practice. He is one of the nation’s most experienced and skilled Supreme Court advocates. He served in the US Department of Justice’s Office of the Solicitor General for more than 30 years, including 24 years as the Deputy Solicitor General in charge of the government’s criminal docket in the Supreme Court. Michael has argued 108 cases in the Supreme Court, including three in the past two terms (prevailing in each). He has briefed hundreds more. These cases span the gamut of constitutional and criminal law, including landmark cases on public corruption, private fraud, Fourth Amendment privacy, and the First Amendment. The civil matters include the separation of powers, federal securities law, RICO, and labor law. In addition, Michael has argued cases in every regional federal court of appeals, including ten cases before en banc courts, and has argued appeals in the Montana Supreme Court, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. In 2017, Michael served as Counselor to Special Counsel Robert Mueller III in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and obstruction of justice. He led the team responsible for giving legal and strategic advice to the Special Counsel and all prosecution teams. He also had a leading role in defending the statutory and constitutional authority of the Special Counsel. Michael’s practice at O’Melveny embraces Supreme Court and Appellate, White-Collar Defense & Corporate Investigations, and civil and criminal litigation particularly involving constitutional claims and complex issues of first impression. Michael serves as a Distinguished Visitor from Government at Georgetown University Law Center and as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. He has previously served as an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and a visiting professor at Duke Law School, where he taught appellate advocacy and a seminar on constitutional litigation in the Supreme Court. Recently, he taught a seminar at the Faculty of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.