Marcus J. Lemon

Chief Counsel

In December 2007, Marcus J. Lemon was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the Chief Counsel for the Federal Highway Administration, where he manages over 60 staff and attorneys in seven regional offices and FHWA head quarters. He is primarily responsible for the provision of legal counsel to the FHWA Administrator, as well as other senior staff within FHWA and DOT, coordinating with members of the Office of the Secretary of Transportation, and representing FHWA before Congress, the private sector, the Executive Branch, and various state agencies.

He is a 1992 graduate of Franklin & Marshall College, cum laude, with B.A. degrees in Government and English. He is a 1996 graduate of the Dickinson School of Law of the Pennsylvania State University, where he served on the Intellectual Property Moot Court Team, which successfully argued an antitrust case before a panel of sitting federal judges at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1996. He is admitted to practice in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the District of Columbia, and the State of New Jersey, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Before entering private practice, Mr. Lemon served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Elizabeth R. Crum, Managing Justice of the Commonwealth Workers' Compensation Court. After his judicial clerkship, Mr. Lemon practiced corporate and finance, securities, and intellectual property law for nine years in private practice, including the Corporate Finance, Banking, and Government Relations Groups at Reed Smith, LLP in its Harrisburg Office; Obermayer, Rebmann, Maxwell & Hippel, LLP, in its Harrisburg and Philadelphia Offices; and Mette, Evans & Woodside in its Harrisburg Office.

Mr. Lemon has extensive experience representing corporate, business, institutional, and individual clientele in matters of corporate, business, corporate and public finance, corporate formation and restructuring, securities, government relations, and technology law issues. His experience includes representation in matters of complex corporate, transactional, restructuring, securities, proxy, corporate control, e-commerce, and mergers and acquisitions issues, for Fortune 500 and publicly held enterprises. Mr. Lemon's experience also includes counseling early stage companies on formation, structure, securities regulations, capitalization, restructuring, private and public offerings, employment, intellectual property, and technology licensing issues. He has also counseled and represented banks and other financial institutions in various transactional and regulatory matters.

In 2000, Mr. Lemon was a candidate in the Republican Primary for Representative in the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for the 37th District. Later in 2000, Mr. Lemon served as a Statewide Media Coordinator and Advance Member for Bush-Cheney 2000, Inc., and Victory 2000. He also served as a coordinator for the 2001 Presidential Inaugural Opening Day Ceremonies.

In 2002, Mr. Lemon went on leave from private practice after being appointed by the White House to serve as Special Assistant and Deputy Chief of Staff to the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Defense, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, at the Pentagon. In his position, Mr. Lemon served as the primary assistant to the Inspector General for policy-making issues and as liaison to other senior officials of the DoD, White House, Congress, and the Executive Branch.

In 2004, Mr. Lemon served as State Chairman of Professionals For Bush-Cheney, a coalition of professionals, and as a Member of the Bush Pioneers Fundraising Team for Pennsylvania. Mr. Lemon also served as Chief Counsel for Middle Pennsylvania for Bush-Cheney 2004, Inc., and as a member of the Executive Committee of the Bush-Cheney 2004 Legal Team in Pennsylvania, which managed over 200 attorneys.

Mr. Lemon is the immediate past Chairman of the Greater Pennsylvania Chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association. He also serves as a Major in the U.S. Army Reserves, Judge Advocate General Corps, and is currently Assistant Staff Judge Advocate for the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He has served in the military for eight years, and has been awarded the Army Achievement Medal (with two Oak Leaf Clusters), having also graduated from the JAG Basic Course, JAG Advanced Course, and the prestigious Army Inspector General Basic Course.

Mr. Lemon is a member of the Pennsylvania Society and is originally from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania where he currently resides.