Erin M. McDonnell
Associate Special Counsel for Legal Counsel and Policy
Ms. McDonnell is a career senior executive with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Her duties include service as the agency's legal counsel and principal ethics
official; coordination of responses to Freedom of Information and Privacy Act requests;
and performance of an array of policy, planning, communications, and other functions.
Ms. McDonnell's accomplishments at the OSC include the receipt of a Distinguished
Presidential Rank Award, based in part on her role in complex negotiations leading to
enactment of strengthened legal protections for federal employees in the Whistleblower
Protection Act of 1989. She later developed government-wide training resources for federal
agencies on employee rights and remedies under the act.
She served as counsel to two Inspectors General at the U.S. Small Business
Administration; senior investigative attorney with the New York State Investigations
Commission; and Assistant District Attorney in the Kings County District Attorney's Office
in New York (investigating and prosecuting organized crime, official corruption, and white
collar crime cases).
Ms. McDonnell attended the University of Notre Dame Law School (including a year of
legal study at the University of London School of Law and the London School of Economics),
graduating with a J.D. degree. She received a Master of Arts degree in communications, and
a Bachelor of Arts degree from Hunter College.
