Robert S. Eitel has served as Deputy General Counsel for Departmental and Legislative Service since July 9, 2006. In this post, he supervises the Division of Business and Administrative Law and the Legislative Counsel Division. In that capacity, he oversees all legal matters concerning employment (including equal employment opportunity, Merit Systems Protection Board, and litigation cases), labor-managment relations, the Freedom of Information Act, privacy (including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), tort claims, contracts, grants, appropriations, federal surplus property, intellectual property, and advisory committees. He also manages the Department's bill drafting, legal review of testimony before Congress, and related matters.

Prior to his appointment, Mr. Eitel served as Senior Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department. Before coming to the Office of the General Counsel, Mr. Eitel practiced law in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the law firm of Robert S. Eitel, L.L.C., where he represented individuals, entrepreneurs, small companies, and corporations. Prior to establishing his own law firm, Mr. Eitel served as counsel to Phelps Dunbar, L.L.P. His litigation and counseling practice included matters involving employment discrimination, complex commercial litigation, bankruptcy advices, copyright infringement cases, and tort suits.

Mr. Eitel was born in Quantico, Virginia, and graduated from Benjamin Franklin Senior High School in New Orleans, a 2003 No Child Left Behind Blue Ribbon Award School. He studied international politics, strategic studies, and British government at the London School of Economics and Political Science and graduated cum laude from Georgetown University with a B.A. in History in 1986. Mr. Eitel graduated cum laude from Tulane University School of Law in 1990. While in law school, he won several academic prizes and served as a Judicial Extern to the Honorable Charles Schwartz, Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He is a former aide to retired U.S. Representative Robert Livingston (R-La.). Mr. Eitel is a member of the Bar of Louisiana and is licensed to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, and the United States District Courts for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of Louisiana.