Johns Hopkins APL Principal Deputy General Counsel Anne Brennan is Recipient of DC Bar Honors for Distinguished Career Service

Anne Brennan, principal deputy general counsel of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, is the 2019 recipient of the D.C. Bar’s Beatrice Rosenberg Award, presented each year to a bar member whose career reflects the highest order of public service.

Brennan, who joined APL in February, served as an attorney with the Department of the Navy from 1986 to 2019, and twice served in the presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position of Navy acting general counsel. She receives an award named for Beatrice Rosenberg, who dedicated 35 years of her career to government service and performed with distinction at the Department of Justice and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as on the Board on Professional Responsibility.

“I am truly honored and excited to be named the recipient of the 2019 Beatrice Rosenberg Award for Excellence in Government Service,” Brennan said. “It is extra special to receive an award named after a sister graduate of Wellesley College. Wellesley’s motto is: ‘non ministrari, sed ministrare,’ Latin for ‘not to be ministered unto, but to minister.’ To me, that embodies a career of government service.”

Brennan championed multiple efforts to break legal and administrative logjams throughout her Navy career. During the 2013 federal government shutdown, Brennan helped to create the agreement that enabled the department to continue supporting the war efforts in Afghanistan and other military operations despite limited funding. She developed innovative legal theories and legislative solutions to help the department act more effectively in disaster relief efforts, such as Operation Tomodachi after the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

She also guarded the Navy from fraud, playing a vital role in a high-profile acquisition fraud case involving contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and developing the implementation plan to expand the department’s program to prosecute fraud under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act — which is expected to save the government (and taxpayers) an estimated $100 million.

The award ceremony will be held in June at the D.C. Bar’s Celebration of Leadership at the Grand Hyatt Washington.