Caroline Lynch was poised to offer special insights when Congress began investigating the unauthorized disclosure of national security documents by contractor Edward Snowden. Lynch, chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on crime, terrorism and homeland security, had helped draft amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008 and worked toward its reauthorization last year. That background lent “a certain amount of context and understanding of the law to help advise the members,” she said.
Lynch, 39, spent about four years working for former Representative John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) — now a partner in Steptoe & Johnson LLP’s Phoenix and Washington offices — before leaving Congress in 2000 for law school. After earning her J.D. in 2003, she clerked for an Arizona state court of appeals judge and was a prosecutor in Maricopa County, Ariz. She returned to Capitol Hill in 2005 as chief counsel to the Republican policy committee. Shadegg said Lynch “did a tremendous job” when she was working for him and displayed an early passion for criminal law.
