Political party Republican | ||
Education UC Berkeley School of Law, University of California, Berkeley | ||
Robert C. O'Brien is a prominent US lawyer who has worked privately and with the US government. He is currently a partner at Larson O'Brien LLP, a Los Angeles based boutique law firm.
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Biography
Born in Los Angeles, California, O'Brien attended Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, California. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. He was a Rotary Scholar at the University of the Free State in South Africa and he speaks fluent Afrikaans.
Professional career
O'Brien was nominated by President George W. Bush on November 10, 2005 and confirmed by the US Senate as the US Alternate Representative to the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met in New York 2005-2006. In addition to his other duties as a US delegate, he addressed the General Assembly on the question of the Palestine and represented the United States in the General Assembly's Sixth Committee, which considered the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
O'Brien served as Co-Chairman of the United States Department of State's Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, launched in December 2007 by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. O'Brien continues to serve on the Public Private Partnership Executive Committee. On July 31, 2008, President George W. Bush announced his intention to appoint O'Brien to serve in his administration as a member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee and represent the interests of the general public, for the remainder of a three-year term which expired on April 25, 2011. O'Brien was a civilian observer for the Pacific Council on International Policy at the pre-trial hearings for alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba in June, 2014; and served on the International Republican Institute's delegation observing Ukraine's October 2015 parliamentary elections.
O'Brien was the partner-in-charge of the California offices of Arent Fox LLP, a national law firm, which under O'Brien's leadership grew faster than any other top law firm according to the Los Angeles Business Journal. Lee, Alfred. "Firm Heads to Westside to Link With Tech Scene." Los Angeles Business Journal May 2014. He has represented Dr. Buzz Aldrin in a number of high-profile cases and he has also represented the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste in proceedings initiated by ConocoPhillips.
O'Brien was the federal court-appointed Discovery Master in the MGA v. Mattel ("Barbie v. Bratz") case. O'Brien also serves as the federal court appointed Discovery Master on the recently settled United States of America v. McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. and Standard & Poor's Financial Services Inc. Martin, Timothy W. "Deadline Is Set to Help S&P Prepare Its Defense in U.S. Fraud Lawsuit." The Wall Street Journal 29 May 2014.
From 1996 to 1998, O'Brien was a legal officer with the United Nations Security Council (Compensation Commission) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he led a multinational team of attorneys, loss adjusters and accountants in the government claims (F) section and was responsible for the United Nations Secretariat's review and processing of billions of dollars in claims resulting from Iraq's 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. He also served as a major in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the US Army Reserve.
In October 2011, Robert was named to Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team as Co-Chair of the International Organizations Work Group.
On May 11, 2015, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin announced that O'Brien would serve as an adviser on foreign policy and national security affairs for his presidential run.
Books
While America Slept: Restoring American Leadership to a World in Crisis