The Senior Energy Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce, Mary Bridget Neumayr (’86) previously served in the George W. Bush Administration, first at the U.S. Department of Justice as a Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and National Resources Division, and then at the U.S. Department of Energy as Deputy General Counsel for Environment and Nuclear Programs.

In the years prior to these appointments, Miss Neumayr had worked as a litigator for one of the nation’s premier energy and insurance law firms, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP in San Francisco, and before that at the international law firm of Coudert Brothers in New York City, where she specialized in antitrust matters and complex litigation. She received her J.D. from Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and while in law school had a legal internship in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Reagan Administration.

Miss Neumayr currently resides in Old Town Alexandria in northern Virginia and is delighted to be living in a place so rich in the early history of our country. In addition, she points out, “There is a very strong community of Thomas Aquinas College graduates in the Washington, D.C., area.”

Of her experience as a political appointee, Miss Neumayr says, “The move from private to public practice has been a challenging transition, but the experience has given me an understanding of how closely entwined politics and the law can be.… I am so grateful for the opportunity.”

An avid tennis player in her free time, Miss Neumayr is also a published author of a number of scholarly legal articles. In addition, she is a past president of the San Francisco Lawyers Division of the Federalist Society, a national organization of lawyers and judges dedicated to traditional principles of jurisprudence and the rule of law.

The eldest daughter of a founding tutor of Thomas Aquinas College, Dr. Jack Neumayr,Mary says of her experience at the College, “The education I received there was an excellent preparation for the practice of law, as well as for life. The emphasis on analysis and discussion gives Thomas Aquinas College graduates a real advantage.”