Former NSA counsel Gerstell tapped to lead ABA national security committee

WASHINGTON—Glenn S. Gerstell, former general counsel of the National Security Agency (NSA), has been named chair of the American Bar Association (ABA) Standing Committee on Law and National Security, ABA President Barbara J. Howard announced.

Gerstell will serve a three-year term leading the nonpartisan committee, which was founded in 1962 by then-ABA President and future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. He succeeds Stephen W. Preston, a senior partner at WilmerHale and former general counsel for both the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency.

The ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security conducts studies, sponsors programs and organizes working groups focused on legal issues tied to national security. The committee also develops recommendations on national security policy matters for the ABA.

Gerstell has previously served on the committee's Advisory Committee and assumes the leadership role as policymakers and legal professionals continue to grapple with issues surrounding cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, intelligence operations and other emerging national security challenges. 

"Rapid, if not overwhelming, technologic changes, in the context of more dangerous world, have created new and complex legal issues in the national security sector," Gerstell said. "I'm honored to follow Stephen Preston in guiding the Standing Committee to help illuminate these issues for the public and policymakers."

According to the ABA, the committee is composed of leading practitioners and scholars in national security law and advises the association on some of the country's most consequential legal and policy issues. The committee also sponsors the Annual Review of the Field of National Security Law conference in Washington, D.C., now in its 36th year.

In a concurrent appointment, Margaret Hu, the Davison Douglas Professor of Law and director of the Digital Democracy Lab at William & Mary Law School, was named chair of the committee's Advisory Committee. 

Hu succeeds Lala R. Qadir, senior director of Technology Security and AI Policy at Microsoft, in the role. Her scholarship focuses on the intersection of civil rights, national security, cyber surveillance and artificial intelligence.