Eleanor Hill

is a partner in the firm’s Government Advocacy and Public Policy Practice Group, where she focuses on Congressional and other government investigations, corporate internal investigations, legislative and policy issues, compliance matters, and issues pertaining to homeland security and intelligence. She also leads the firm’s Homeland Security practice team.

Ms. Hill has over 33 years of experience handling investigations in both the executive and legislative branches of government and in the private sector. Recognized for her investigative expertise, in 2002 the House and Senate Intelligence Committees asked her to lead the historic, bipartisan, and bicameral Joint Congressional Inquiry on the September 11th Attacks. As Staff Director, she directed the extensive investigation, hearings, and report that reviewed the nation’s highly classified intelligence files and first uncovered what our Intelligence Community knew, or should have known, regarding the terrorist threat prior to the September 11th attacks.

From 1995 through 1999 Ms. Hill served as Inspector General to the Department of Defense, having been appointed to that position by President Clinton. As Inspector General, she directed audits, criminal and administrative investigations, and investigative policy throughout the Department, including the Military Departments. Her work included audits and investigations in such areas as procurement and health care fraud; ethics and conflict of interest; military personnel, logistics and readiness; environmental cleanup; acquisition and government contracting; information technology; and intelligence and national security. A leader in the federal inspector general community, she served as Chair of the President’s Council on Integrity and Efficiency, as co-chair of the Intelligence Community Inspectors General Forum, and as a Member of the Attorney General’s Council on White Collar Crime. She was awarded the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal by Secretary William Perry and the Bronze Palm to the Distinguished Public Service Medal by Secretary William Cohen.

From 1980 through February 1995, Ms. Hill led numerous domestic and international Congressional investigations on behalf of the United States Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Her work included investigations on such topics as organized crime and labor racketeering, drug enforcement, money laundering, national security, export controls, Medicare fraud, student loan and Pell grant fraud, and fraud and abuse in the insurance industry. As the Subcommittee’s Chief Counsel and Staff Director, she also drafted and negotiated legislative proposals in a variety of areas. In 1987, she also served as Liaison Counsel for Senator Sam Nunn on the Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition.

Ms. Hill is also an experienced federal prosecutor and trial lawyer, having served both as an Assistant United States Attorney in Tampa, Florida and as a Special Attorney with the Organized Crime Section of the U.S. Department of Justice. She has substantial grand jury, trial, and appellate experience in such areas as racketeering; organized crime; Medicare, immigration, and insurance fraud; public corruption; and white collar crime. Her trial experience includes the prosecution of a state cabinet official on federal corruption charges as well as what was, at the time, the largest federal RICO prosecution in the country.

Ms. Hill has testified on numerous occasions before various Congressional Committees in both the House and the Senate and has been a featured speaker on congressional investigations in Congressional Research Service training for Congressional Members and staff. Her experience includes numerous public speaking engagements and both national and international media interviews on issues related to investigations, homeland security, intelligence policy and counterterrorism. Among other things, she served on the Advisory Board for the Long-Term Legal Strategy Project for Preserving Security and Democratic Norms in the War on Terrorism, sponsored by the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Law School; was a featured participant at Aspen Institute programs on national security; and currently serves as a member of the Procurement Roundtable.

Recent Publications

“The 110th Congress: What Your Company Should Know About Congressional Private Sector Investigations,” Metropolitan Corporate Counsel, January 2007

“Congress and the Power to Investigate: What You Need to Know,” National Legal Center, April 2007 (co-author with Ted Hester)