Eugene Sullivan
Advisor Emeritus

Eugene Sullivan

Advisor Emeritus

Honorable Eugene R. Sullivan is a retired United States Federal Judge with close to two decades of appellate court judicial experience. Nominated by President Ronald Reagan and confirmed by the US Senate, Judge Sullivan was installed as a Federal Judge in 1986. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush named him the Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals (Armed Forces). In 2002, he was elevated to a Senior Status Federal Judge. When not recalled to active Court service, Judge Sullivan is the Senior Counsel of the Washington DC law firm of Freeh Sporkin & Sullivan LLP.

Judge Sullivan graduated from the prestigious US Military Academy, West Point, New York, where he was a member of the Cadet Honor Committee (elected by his class) and the varsity lacrosse team (Letterman). Following graduation, he served in the Army for over five years and qualified as a tanker, an Airborne Ranger, a Ranger Instructor, and a Jumpmaster. He is a decorated military officer. He has been designated as a Distinguished Member of the Ranger Training Brigade. In the Vietnam war, he was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Air Medal and other military decorations. In 2010, he was inducted into the US Army Ranger Hall of Fame.

After military service, Judge Sullivan graduated from Georgetown University Law Center. While in university, he served as an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. After law school, Judge Sullivan clerked for Chief Judge Matthes of the US Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) and worked for the Patton Boggs law firm in Washington DC. He served in the White House on the legal defense team of President Nixon during the Watergate investigation. For eight years, he was a trial attorney and federal prosecutor in the US Department of Justice. Later he appointed to be in the Pentagon for almost five years as the 14th US Air Force General Counsel and the Chief Ethics Officer of the US Air Force after serving initially as the USAF Deputy General Counsel, overseeing almost two thousand attorneys in the Air Force..

In addition, for almost five years, Judge Sullivan was the covert General Counsel of the National Reconnaissance Office (“NRO”, a then super-secret US satellite intelligence agency). While in the Air Force, he was also the Governor of Wake Island (the US possession in the Pacific). Judge Sullivan served on the Federal Commission to review the West Point Honor Code. He is a Trustee Emeritus and the founding Chair of the Ethics Committee of the West Point Board of Trustees (Association of Graduates) and was on the founding Executive Board of the Duke Law School Center for Law, Ethics and National Security. For many years, he was the chair of the International Judicial Conference (Criminal Law) and the Great Debate judicial reform between the US and England, educating international judges and lawyers.