Randolph D. Moss is chair of the firm's Regulatory and Government Affairs Department and a member of the Litigation/Controversy Department. He is also a member of the firm's Government and Regulatory Litigation, Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation, Defense, National Security and Government Contracts, and Strategic Response and Counseling Practice Groups, and a member of the Business Trial Group. Mr. Moss joined the firm in 1989 and is a member of the firm's Management Committee.
Mr. Moss originally joined the firm after serving as a law clerk to the US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. From 1996 to 2001, he served as a senior official in the US Department of Justice, culminating in his appointment by the President, and confirmation by the Senate, as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel. Since returning to the firm in 2001, Mr. Moss has focused on complex civil litigation, appellate practice, administrative and constitutional law and national security law. He has been recognized by Washingtonian magazine as one of the top constitutional and appellate lawyers in Washington DC.
As Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Moss was the principal legal adviser in the Executive Branch. He advised the Attorney General, the White House and the Executive departments on the government's most difficult and important legal questions, from the legality of taking regulatory or administrative action in unsettled areas of the law, to the constitutionality of statutes and pending legislation, to critical issues of national security law. Among other important matters, Mr. Moss issued legal opinions on the war powers resolution, whether a sitting President is subject to indictment, and the effects of Senate acquittal in an impeachment trial. He also issued opinions on a broad range of constitutional issues (including the First Amendment, due process, separation of powers and federalism), on important questions of administrative law, and on the meaning of federal laws in areas involving privacy, copyright, ethics, immigration, appropriations, Native American sovereignty, electronic surveillance, national security, the environment, antitrust, immunity from civil suit, civil rights, international trade and criminal proceedings. While at the Office of Legal Counsel, Mr. Moss also testified before Congress on behalf of the Executive Branch on FDA regulation of tobacco, federal preemption of state law, separation of powers and national security, and whether to amend the Constitution to ban flag desecration.
Practice
Mr. Moss's clients include companies in the financial, pharmaceutical, consumer goods, national defense and telecommunications industries, as well as governmental and quasi-governmental entities and industry associations. He routinely advises and represents clients before federal agencies and before state and federal courts, including the US Supreme Court and other appellate tribunals. Over the years, he has represented clients in class actions and other complex civil litigation, constitutional litigation, agency rulemakings and adjudications and judicial challenges to agency actions.