Russell Bruemmer joined the firm in 1981 after serving as Chief Counsel-Congressional Affairs for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He became a partner in 1985. Mr. Bruemmer served as General Counsel of the CIA from 1987 to 1990, when he returned to the firm. His practice focused primarily on financial services institutions, including the negotiation and documentation of acquisitions and divestitures, joint ventures and financing transactions; resolving enforcement actions and conducting internal investigations; and on corporate governance and corporate structuring matters in a variety of industries. Mr. Bruemmer served as a senior counsel in the firm’s Financial Institutions Group, its Corporate Transaction Group and its Defense and National Security Group, and retired in 2015.

Mr. Bruemmer counseled clients on the regulation of financial services, and also on regulatory issues and transactions involving, technology, energy and other industry sectors. He also represented audit committees and special committees in corporate investigations and other special assignments. These assignments involved both US and international transactions, a number of which required compliance with one or more applicable regulatory regimes.

After clerking for Judge William H. Webster on the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Mr. Bruemmer was appointed Special Assistant to the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in February 1978. Mr. Bruemmer served in that position until June 1980, when he became Chief Counsel-Congressional Affairs for the FBI, a position he held until he joined the firm in 1981. Mr. Bruemmer also served as Special Counsel to the Director of Central Intelligence from September 1987 to January 1988 and as the Central Intelligence Agency's General Counsel from January 1988 until March 1990. At the CIA, Mr. Bruemmer managed an office of 60 lawyers and was the senior legal officer for the Agency and the Director of Central Intelligence.

Professional Activities

Mr. Bruemmer has chaired two American Bar Association subcommittees of its Banking Law Committee and served as vice-chair of an ABA subcommittee on corporate compliance policies. He has been a member of the Executive Committee of the Federal Bar Association's Banking Law Committee, was a standing committee member of the ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security and has consulted with the ABA's Central and Eastern European Law Initiative and the Congressionally mandated Commission on the Advancement of Federal Law Enforcement. He was Commissioner on the William H. Webster Commission on The Federal Bureau of Investigation, Counterterrorism Intelligence, and the Events at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009.

Mr. Bruemmer was elected as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations in 1991, and since 1994, has been a member of the American Law Institute. He also was a director of the Chauncey Group International, Ltd., a subsidiary of Educational Testing Service engaged in professional and occupational licensing and certification testing and assessment from 1999 to 2003. He was elected to the Board of Regents of Luther College (Decorah, Iowa) in 2007 and Chairs the Board's Audit Committee. Mr. Bruemmer is the author of numerous articles published in law reviews and other legal publications and regularly speaks at seminars and trade association meetings.