Brian Boynton is chair of the firm’s Government and Regulatory Litigation Group. From January 2021 to January 2025, he served as the head of the Civil Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ). Mr. Boynton is an experienced litigator who focuses on complex government, regulatory, and commercial litigation and investigations. He represents clients in matters involving DOJ, including False Claims Act (FCA) investigations and litigation, Administrative Procedure Act (APA) challenges to agency actions, and constitutional and preemption litigation. His practice also includes commercial and regulatory litigation, as well as matters involving multi-jurisdictional investigations.

Mr. Boynton rejoined the firm in 2025 following his service at DOJ. During his time as the head of the Civil Division, he oversaw approximately 1,100 lawyers, was responsible for the Division’s affirmative and defensive litigation across six components, and personally handled some of the most important matters facing the government. He led the division’s efforts in areas such as FCA enforcement, consumer protection enforcement, APA litigation, defense of tort claims, government contracts litigation, international trade litigation, and immigration matters. His four-year tenure running the Division was the longest in nearly two decades.

Under Mr. Boynton’s leadership, the Civil Division pursued a wide range of FCA matters, recovering over $13 billion dollars in aggregate under the Act in fiscal years 2021 through 2024. He also oversaw the work of the Division’s Consumer Protection Branch, which brings actions under a variety of statutes, including the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, the Controlled Substances Act, the Federal Trade Commission Act, and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. Under Mr. Boynton’s guidance, the Division also successfully pursued numerous affirmative preemption lawsuits challenging state legislation and actions that conflicted with federal law.

Mr. Boynton was also responsible for leading the Civil Division’s work defending APA challenges to federal agency actions and constitutional challenges to federal statutes. During his tenure, the Division defended challenges to (among other things) the Medicare prescription drug negotiation program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy, numerous COVID-19 vaccine requirements, the CDC’s Title 42 order and its rescission, FDA’s approval and regulation of mifepristone, asylum regulations, the Department of Education’s student loan forgiveness initiatives, various ATF firearms regulations, and regulations under Title IX and Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. 

In addition, Mr. Boynton led DOJ’s defense of government contract litigation, tort actions, international trade disputes, and immigration challenges, as well as commercial litigation, intellectual property disputes involving the United States, FOIA litigation, and oversight litigation.

From 2017 to 2021, Mr. Boynton was a partner in the firm’s Government and Regulatory Litigation Group, where he represented clients in all stages of litigation and handled a wide range of complex government, regulatory, and commercial litigation as well as agency, congressional, and internal investigations.

Mr. Boynton previously served at DOJ from 2014 to 2017. He was a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel—the office charged with providing authoritative legal advice to the President and the Executive Branch. He also served as a Counselor to Attorney General Loretta Lynch, helping to coordinate significant civil litigation involving DOJ.

Mr. Boynton was at the firm for 12 years before first joining DOJ in 2014. Before joining WilmerHale in 2002, Mr. Boynton served as a law clerk to then-Chief Judge Douglas Ginsburg of the United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and to Judge Vaughn Walker of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.