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Alumni Update: Practicing Law in Public

Mary Bridget Neumayr, J.D. ('86), U.S. Department of Energy

(Fall 2006 Newsletter)

Since 2003, Mary Neumayr (’86) has served in the Bush Administration in Washington, D.C., first at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and National Resources Division, and currently at the U.S. Department of Energy as Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs.

In the years prior to these appointments, Miss Neumayr had worked as a litigator for one of the nation’s premier energy and insurance law firms, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP in San Francisco, and before that at the international law firm of Coudert Brothers in New York City, where she specialized in antitrust matters and complex litigation. She received her J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and while in law school had a legal internship in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan Administration.

Now, most of Miss Neumayr’s duties at the Department of Energy are management-related and involve environmental, civilian nuclear, and international and national security matters. In her previous position in the office of assistant U. S. Attorney Sansonetti at the Department of Justice, she assisted in the management of a wide range of litigation, both initiated by and brought against the U.S. government, arising under environmental and natural resource statutes.

Mary currently resides in Old Town Alexandria in northern Virginia and is delighted to be living in a place so rich in the early history of our country. In addition, she points out, “There is a very strong community of Thomas Aquinas College graduates in the Washington, D.C., area.”

Of her experience as a political appointee, Neumayr says, “The move from private to public practice has been a challenging transition, but the experience has given me an understanding of how closely entwined politics and the law can be. My appointments at both the Department of Justice and the Department of Energy have been wonderful experiences for me, and I am so grateful for the opportunity.”

An avid tennis player in her free time, Mary is also a published author of a number of scholarly legal articles. In addition, she is a past president of the San Francisco Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society, a national organization of lawyers and judges dedicated to traditional principles of juriprudence and the rule of law.

The eldest daughter of founding tutor and Governor of the College, Dr. Jack Neumayr, Mary says of her experience at Thomas Aquinas College, “The education I received there was an excellent preparation for the practice of law, as well as for life. The emphasis on analysis and discussion gives Thomas Aquinas College graduates a real advantage.”

-- Qtrly Newsletter, Fall 2006