Eileen M. O'Connor

Eileen O'Connor, "counsel in Orrick's Washington, D.C. office, is a member of the firm's Litigation Group. She is a 24-year veteran journalist with experience working for ABC News and CNN in London, Moscow, Tokyo and Washington, D.C.  Ms. O'Connor served as chief researcher and producer for ABC News Peter Jennings overseas from 1981 to 1986, moving to Moscow and then to CNN in 1989.  While in Moscow from 1986 to 1997, Ms. O'Connor covered the fall of communism; Russian politics and business; organized crime; and the wars in Afghanistan, Sarajevo, Nagrono Karabakh, Ossetia, and Chechnya, where her coverage was nominated for an Emmy.  Her live reporting of the attempted coups in 1991 and 1993 won some of American journalism's highest honors, as did her investigation of Al Qaeda post 9/11.

"After serving as CNN bureau chief in Moscow, Ms. O'Connor was White House correspondent and national correspondent covering the Clinton Administration, and most notably, investigations into campaign finance, Monica Lewinsky, and the Marc Rich pardon. Ms. O'Connor left CNN at the end of 2001 to pursue a law degree and help start the Legal Crisis Communications practice at Patton Boggs, LLP as a strategic policy adviser. After leaving Patton Boggs, LLP in 2004, she became president of the International Center for Journalists, a non-profit organization dedicated to training journalists to build a free and independent press in emerging democracies and to improve the quality of journalism worldwide.

"Ms. O'Connor joined Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe, LLP in December 2005. She advises the Department of Homeland Security, through the Naval Postgraduate School on incident response.  She also speaks on various international and political topics on ABC, CNN and Fox News and at international symposia.  Because of her legal and political experience worldwide, Ms. O'Connor also works in Orrick's Russia practice group, based in Washington, D.C. and Moscow."


 * Steering Committee (2004), Global Forum for Media Development