Rudy Mehrbani

Rudy Mehrbani is Spitzer Fellow and Senior Counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. Mr. Mehrbani most recently served as Assistant to the President and Director of the Presidential Personnel Office at the White House, where he advised President Obama, Cabinet members, and senior staff on human capital issues arising across the executive branch of the Federal government. He was responsible for recruiting, retaining, and professionally developing political appointees in the executive branch. Mr. Mehrbani also held a number of other positions in President Obama’s Administration. From 2014 to 2016, Mr. Mehrbani was General Counsel of the Peace Corps, serving as the principal legal officer and a senior advisor to the Director of the Peace Corps. Mr. Mehrbani’s leadership and creativity at the Peace Corps were critical to facilitating innovative partnerships with public and private institutions in support of the agency’s development priorities and integral to the First Lady’s Let Girls Learn initiative, which is a government-wide effort to expand access to education for women and girls around the globe. During his tenure, the Peace Corps finalized agreements for new programs and expanded to Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma). Prior to serving at the Peace Corps, Mr. Mehrbani was Associate Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in the White House Counsel’s Office, where he led the team responsible for vetting President Obama’s appointees and nominees. He also served at the Department of Housing and Urban Development as Special Policy Advisor in the Office of the Secretary, where he helped manage HUD’s regulatory agenda and stand up the Hurricane Sandy Task Force.

Mr. Mehrbani also held a variety of roles in the White House during President Obama’s first term, including Domestic Director for Presidential Personnel, Senior Vetting Counsel, and Deputy Associate Counsel. Before entering the Federal government, Mr. Mehrbani practiced law as an associate at Kirkland & Ellis LLP in Chicago, where he worked on a wide range of complex commercial cases in Kirkland’s litigation practice group.

Mr. Mehrbani received a B.A. from Emory University and a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law. He has also completed an international comparative business law program at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg, Germany. He currently serves as a member of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.