Hotchkiss is excited to announce Lisa Brown ’78 as the 2025 Commencement speaker.

Brown is a partner with the international law firm WilmerHale and chairs its Higher Education Practice. She served as the Senate-confirmed general counsel of the United States Department of Education from October 2021 to January 2025. Before that, she was vice president and general counsel of Georgetown University.

Prior to joining Georgetown, Brown served in the administration of President Barack Obama, first as assistant to the president and staff secretary in the White House, and then as acting chief performance officer at the Office of Management and Budget. She had previously served as co-director of agency review for the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

Prior to joining the Transition Project, Brown served for six years as the executive director of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, Brown was counsel to Vice President Al Gore and a member of the Executive Board of the President’s Committee for Employment of People with Disabilities. She also served as an attorney adviser in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice.

Before entering the government, Brown was a partner at the Washington law firm of Shea & Gardner. She clerked for the Hon. John C. Godbold on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

After Hotchkiss, she graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in political economy and earned her law degree from the University of Chicago Law School, where she graduated with honors and served as editor-in-chief of the University of Chicago Legal Forum.

She was Hotchkiss's Alum of the Month in January 2022.

Brown is married to Dr. Kevin Cullen and they have a son, Philip Cullen, who will graduate from Northwestern University in June 2025 with a major in theatre and a minor in legal studies. Brown mentors first-generation college students and students interested in law and social justice. She serves on the board of directors of The Theatre Lab in Washington, D.C.