Richard D. Klingler

RICHARD D. KLINGLER is a partner based in the Washington, D.C., office. He focuses his practice on national security matters and complex litigation in U.S. courts involving constitutional law and cross-border disputes. He has extensive litigation and regulatory experience working on behalf of telecommunications, finance, energy, and media clients. He has participated in matters before the U.S. Supreme Court, other appellate courts, and trial and regulatory bodies. He has worked extensively on matters being addressed in Congressional and other investigations or pending before Executive Branch departments and agencies.

Mr. Klingler joined the firm in 1990 and first became a partner in 1996. He served from 2006-2007 as the General Counsel and Legal Adviser on the National Security Council staff, advising senior government officials on an array of intelligence, defense, foreign policy, litigation, and investigatory matters. From 2005-2007, he served in the Office of the Counsel to the President, concluding as Senior Associate Counsel to the President. His work focused on litigation, Congressional investigations, and issues before the Departments of State and Homeland Security. He worked from 1997-2002 as an investment banker with Credit Suisse First Boston on equity capital market and M&A transactions in the telecommunications, energy, and finance sectors. From 1994-96 he worked in Australia as Regulatory Advisor and then Regulatory Counsel for Telstra Corp., where he addressed litigation, legislative, transactional, and regulatory issues.

Mr. Klingler is an Adjunct Fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, addressing counter-terrorism legal issues, and, from 1993-94, was Guest Scholar at The Brookings Institution, which published his book, The New Information Industry: Regulatory Challenges and the First Amendment (1996). He testified several times before Congress on Constitutional, counter-terrorism, and sovereign immunity issues, and has written on public policy matters for various national publications.

Mr. Klingler was a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (1989-90) and Judge Kenneth W. Starr of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1988-89). He obtained law degrees from Oxford University, which he attended as a Rhodes Scholar, and from Stanford Law School, where he was Senior Articles Editor of The Stanford Law Review and a member of Order of the Coif. 

• Stanford Law School (J.D., 1988)
• Oxford University (B.A., 1985)
• Stanford University (A.B., 1983