Bruce Swartz

From 2000 to 2025, Bruce Swartz served as a deputy assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice and as the department’s counselor for international affairs. He is currently a senior adviser (non-resident) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Peter Gruber Rule of Law Fellow at Yale Law School. As deputy assistant attorney general, Mr. Swartz supervised the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. In this role, he coordinated the overseas operational activities of the department, including extraditions and mutual legal assistance in national security and criminal cases. Mr. Swartz also was responsible for the department’s overseas rule of law capacity-building programs. During his service as the department’s counselor for international affairs, Mr. Swartz was an advisor to eight attorneys general. In this position, Mr. Swartz also represented the Department of Justice in international treaty negotiations, in multilateral and bilateral consultations, and in sensitive overseas missions. Prior to joining the Department of Justice, Mr. Swartz was a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Shea & Gardner. He received his BA and JD degrees from Yale University and was a Henry Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge University. He was a law clerk to Judge Wilfred Feinberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and to Justice Harry Blackmun of the U.S. Supreme Court. He is a member of the bars of New York and the District of Columbia and qualified as a barrister (Middle Temple, England). Mr. Swartz is a recipient of numerous awards for his government service, including the Presidential Distinguished Rank Award.