Claire McCusker Murray

Claire McCusker Murray serves as Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General, overseeing the following Department of Justice components: Antitrust Division, Civil Division, Civil Rights Division, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Tax Division, Executive Office for U.S. Trustees, Office of Justice Programs, Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS), Office on Violence Against Women, Community Relations Service, Office on Information Policy, Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, and the Service Members and Veterans Initiative.

Ms. Murray joined the Department of Justice as a Counselor to Attorney General William P. Barr. Before coming to the Department, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Associate Counsel to the President of the United States. In that role, she advised the President regarding civil litigation, regulatory actions, and judicial nominations.

Before joining the Administration, Ms. Murray was a litigation and appellate partner with the international law firm of Kirkland & Ellis LLP, where her practice focused on complex commercial litigation, constitutional litigation, and internal investigations. Earlier in her career, she was an Honors Program trial attorney in the Criminal Division’s Appellate Section.

Ms. Murray served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Samuel A. Alito of the Supreme Court of the United States and to then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. She received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an Articles Editor on the Yale Law Journal, and her bachelor’s degree magna cum laude from Harvard College. She also holds master’s degrees from Cambridge University and from l’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris.