Michael J. Walsh, Jr. is a partner and litigation attorney with Foley & Lardner LLP. Based in the firm’s D.C. office, he is a member of the Government Enforcement Defense & Investigations Practice.

Prior to joining Foley, Mike served as Chief of Staff at the U.S. Commerce Department, and he also performed the duties of the General Counsel since August 2019. In this role as Chief Legal Officer, Mike oversaw more than 600 attorneys and was responsible for all legal matters within the Department. He also served as the senior advisor to the Secretary of Commerce on the most important legal and strategic policy matters involving the 47,000-person Cabinet department with a $9 billion budget. Mike worked on a number of important legal issues including export administration and enforcement, emerging technologies, supply chain risk management, GDPR and CFIUS. Mike managed critical litigation in federal district and appellate courts throughout the country and coordinated the determination of Department positions on Supreme Court cases.

Mike worked with CEOs, boards of directors and other executives regarding critical business before the Department. He also interacted with foreign heads of state, ministers and other officials while representing the United States in bilateral trade talks. He worked with Cabinet members, their Chiefs of Staff and General Counsels and the White House on important administration policies and then executed those priorities within the Department. He also provided legal and strategic advice to the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and other senior department leaders while coordinating with White House counsel and interagency lawyers on legal issues.

In private practice, Mike advised companies on their highest profile litigation matters and counseled them about sensitive Congressional and other government investigations and enforcement matters. He has years of experience defending companies in complex multidistrict securities class action cases and parallel shareholder derivative and ERISA cases.