Adam R. Pearlman

Adam Pearlman is the Founder and Managing Director of Lexpat Global Services.  He is a National Security Law expert and a proven senior leader with experience across the U.S. Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, in the White House, and with the U.S. Federal Judiciary.

Before founding Lexpat, Mr. Pearlman served as the Senior Advisor for Legal Policy in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism.  There, he counseled senior officials on matters covering the entire spectrum of programs and operations to counter terrorism and violent extremism.  While participating in sensitive diplomatic engagements and helping to coordinate military operations, he also advised in the development of sanctions policy and initiatives to build legal and operational capacity in partner nations.  Mr. Pearlman also managed the Bureau’s participation in federal litigation and led U.S. delegations in multilateral forums concerning criminal justice and rule of law.  Separately, Mr. Pearlman supported the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) as the contracted Senior Justice and Rule of Law Advisor in Cabo Verde, Africa.  There he was the chief implementer of a Foreign Assistance program that grew eight-fold during his tenure, building host nation capacity across the law enforcement, justice sector, rule of law, anti-money laundering, and corrections disciplines.

A former Associate Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Defense, Mr. Pearlman was agency counsel for complex civil and criminal national security matters in federal and military courts.  He also led the Supreme Court and appellate unit of the team dedicated to litigating classified counterterrorism cases.  His earlier service in the Department of Justice spanned four litigating divisions and the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.  His diverse experience included reviewing complex international transactions and mergers, and advising on immigration removal proceedings, human rights abuses, and terrorist financing investigations.  Mr. Pearlman also served with distinction in Iraq as an early advisor to the Iraqi High Tribunal’s prosecution of Saddam Hussein.  He was a law clerk for The Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and during law school interned in the White House Counsel’s Office.

Mr. Pearlman is a Senior Fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, a member of the American Bar Association’s Advisory Committee on Law and National Security, and the Editor-in-Chief of the U.S. Intelligence Community Law Sourcebook.  Previously, he has been a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, National Security Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, member of the ABA’s Africa Law Initiative Council and of the Center for Strategic & International Studies’ (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues, vice chairman of the ABA Section of International Law’s committees on national security, and aerospace and defense, and a liaison to the Board of Directors of the ABA’s Rule of Law Initiative.  He has published articles in the Harvard National Security Journal, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Intelligence & National Security, The Foreign Service Journal, Lawfare, and many other outlets.

Mr. Pearlman earned his B.A., with honors, from UCLA, and his J.D., with honors, from The George Washington University Law School, where he was a member of the International Law Review.  He also earned a Master of Science of Strategic Intelligence degree from the National Intelligence University, where he was the inaugural recipient of the Kornblum Award for national security law and ethics.  Mr. Pearlman is a Certified Financial Crime Specialist and holds certificates in international human rights law from the University of Oxford and in anti-corruption law from American University’s Washington College of Law.  He is admitted to the State Bars of California and Virginia, as well as to the Bar of the United States Supreme Court.  He speaks and reads Portuguese at the intermediate level.