Former UMM, Harvard Law grad to speak on federal judiciary

Rachel Brand, a 1995 University of Minnesota, Morris graduate and a Harvard Law School graduate, will return to the Morris campus as a guest lecturer on Oct. 2.

Brand will speak on "Viewing the Federal Judiciary from all Angles" at 7 p.m. in the Humanities Fine Arts Recital Hall.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

"I remember Rachel Brand well as an able, alert student sitting in the front row of Introduction to U. S. History in the fall of 1994," said Roland Guyotte, UMM professor of history. "She paid careful attention to the election that year, an early indicator of her later political activism and achievement."

Brand is a counsel in the Regulatory and Government Affairs and Litigation and Controversy Departments and a member of the Defense and National Security and Government and Regulatory Litigation Practice Groups. She is a former assistant attorney general and associate counsel under President George W. Bush prior to joining the WilmerHale law firm. Brand is a leading expert on the USA PATRIOT Act, national security issues and the Supreme Court confirmation process. She also worked as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.