Six years ago, Dana Remus ’93 left a tenured position in academia to move to Washington. Now she’s serving as White House General Counsel.

With the inauguration of President Joe Biden, New Hampshire native Dana Remus ’93 moved into her new office on Pennsylvania Avenue as White House general counsel. Remus had served with the same title for the Biden-Harris Campaign and, before that, was general counsel of the Obama Foundation and of President and Mrs. Obama’s personal office. A White House veteran, she served as deputy assistant to the President and deputy counsel for ethics during the Obama-Biden administration. She had earlier been a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Law, specializing in legal and judicial ethics and the regulation of the legal profession. In late March, Remus joined Alumni Horae contributor Michael Matros for a phone interview, excerpted here.

In his Senate hearing as the nominee for Attorney General, Merrick Garland said he’s not the President’s lawyer, but the lawyer for the United States. Is there a similar distinction in your job?
Yes, though I’d say it a little differently. I’d say that I am the lawyer for the Office of the Presidency and the Institution of the Presidency. And that certainly sweeps in the White House and the Executive Office of the President [EOP].

What brought you to the White House in the first place?
I was a law professor at the time. My field was judicial and legal ethics, and I was doing an empirical project on government lawyers, when the White House Counsel, Neil Eggleston, called and asked if I wanted to interview for the Chief Ethics Counsel position. This was August 2015. I said I was excited about the call and would love to interview, but I was visiting Cornell Law School for a semester, and I did not feel like I could pull out of my teaching responsibilities three days before the semester started. He said, ‘Well, if you’re driving north anyway, why don’t you come through D.C.? We’ll chat.’

The chat must have gone well.
We had a great conversation, and I left feeling a little sad that there was no chance I could do this, but excited to have been in the West Wing for the first time and have met the White House Counsel. And then both he and the Dean at Cornell Law School were so kind and helpful and flexible, and Neil kept the job open for six weeks. So, I taught the fall on a condensed schedule to come down and start the White House job before Thanksgiving. I was going to be here for the last 14 months of the Obama administration and had every intention of going back to academia.

But it didn’t work out quite like you planned?
One thing led to another. I extended my leave by six months to help the Obamas set up their foundation and their personal office and was three months into that and loving it. When I had to decide whether I would leave my tenured teaching job, basically give up my tenure or go back, I decided to stay.

You must be pretty comfortable in the geography of the West Wing. What would I see if I visited and looked out your windows?
I’m in the second floor back corner. Out one set of windows is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Out the back window is the South Lawn.

And you have memorabilia on your walls?
I do, including a St. Paul’s flag, my New Hampshire license plate, and a picture of the New Hampshire State House. New Hampshire is near and dear to my heart, as is St. Paul’s.

How often do you meet with the President?
It’s variable. I would say two or three times a week, not every day, but on some sort of regular basis. It’s just driven by subject matter and agenda. There are some days when I have a fair bit with him and some days nothing at all. Much of the work of our team involves the White House as a whole, and the EOP as a whole, to make sure the Policy Councils have good lawyering partners and to make sure we’re supporting the building and training the building on ethics obligations and all sorts of things to make sure we’re living up to the standards we set for ourselves. So, lots of work to be done with him, lots of work to be done with others around him.

Are you the primary contact between the White House and the Attorney General’s office?
It’s an interesting question, because we have a pretty strict contact policy of how communication happens between the White House and the Department of Justice, as well as all other agencies. I am not the only person who has contact with the department, but almost all communications in the first instance come through our office to ensure that there are no improper communications.

You have a son who is not quite two. Tell me about him.
I joined the campaign five months pregnant, which is a little wacky. I’m very proud of the fact. The legal team on the campaign had three babies during the course of the campaign. I just think it’s a wonderful testament to the President that we all felt like it was not only totally possible, but something he would support – to have people working on that campaign who were in the process of having families and needed to take time off as they had their families.

I know you remain friends with the Obamas, and that President Obama officiated at your wedding, a surprise for your guests. Do you have a chance to see them these days?
Not in the pandemic, sadly. And my son has not met them, which makes me sad because he was born shortly before we all went into quarantine. So I look forward to him meeting them.