Michael Greenberger, JD
Michael Greenberger, JD, is the founder and director of the University of Maryland Center for Health and Homeland Security (CHHS) and a professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
CHHS works on a broad range of homeland security, public health, cybersecurity, and other disaster response issues for federal, state, and local governmental agencies, as well as for universities and public health entities both domestically and internationally.
CHHS has a staff of more than 25 professionals, many of whom are graduates of Maryland Carey Law who worked almost exclusively assisting its clients in combating COVID-19 during the pandemic.
More information about CHHS can be found at www.mdchhs.com.
Since joining Maryland Carey Law in 2001, Greenberger has designed, taught, and/or supervised 17 graduate school and law courses focused on the law and policy of catastrophic response. He also frequently teaches undergraduate courses at the University of Maryland, College Park under that campus’ MLAW program, using and adjusting CHHS’ graduate and law courses for teaching at the undergraduate level.
Greenberger serves by appointment of the Maryland attorney general on the Maryland Cybersecurity Council. He is a member of the CyberMaryland Advisory Board and the Baltimore Washington Cyber Task Force.
Greenberger is a member of the Faculty Advisory Board for, and a board member of, the University of Maryland’s Center for the Study of Business Ethics, Regulation, and Crime. He also serves as an affiliate faculty member on the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Institute for Global Health and is a member of the UMB Faculty Senate, as well as a member of the American Bar Association’s Law and National Security Advisory Committee.
In March 2020, Greenberger was named by Maryland’s The Daily Record as a “Leadership in Law Honoree” for outstanding legal work and accomplishment.
Greenberger previously served by appointment of the governor of Maryland on the Commission on Maryland Cybersecurity Innovation and Excellence. He is a former member of the National Academies’ Committee on Science, Technology, and Law. He also previously served by appointment of the Maryland governor as both the vice chair and chair of the Maryland Governor’s Emergency Management Advisory Council.
Greenberger regularly writes about and comments on homeland security and emergency management topics for local and national media outlets; presents at professional conferences on these subjects; and is on the editorial board for the International Journal for Disaster and Military Medicine.
In 1999, Greenberger began service as counselor to the United States attorney general, and then became the Justice Department's principal deputy associate attorney general. In the latter capacity, Greenberger assisted the United States attorney general and associate attorney general in supervising the work of the Justice Department's Civil, Civil Rights, Environmental, Antitrust, and Tax Divisions. Also within his portfolio of responsibilities were several counterterrorism projects concerning both law enforcement and public health policy, including organizing a nationwide counterterrorism war game (TOPOFF I).
From 1997 to 1999, Greenberger was the director of the Division of Trading and Markets at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), working directly for then-CFTC Chairperson Brooksley Born. He focused on issues relating to the regulation of futures and derivatives. He also served on the Steering Committee of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets and as a member of the International Organization of Securities Commission’s Hedge Fund Task Force.
Since that time, Greenberger has frequently been asked to testify before congressional committees on issues pertaining to the regulation of financial markets, including testifying over a dozen times in Congress on the passage and implementation of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Act. He has also served as the technical advisor to the United Nations Commission of Experts on Reforms of the International Monetary and Financial System and on the International Energy Forum's Independent Expert Group on reducing worldwide energy price volatility. Greenberger regularly teaches a course on financial market dysfunctions at Maryland Carey Law.
Discussing financial regulation and disaster response, Greenberger also routinely appears in the media and at academic gatherings, including appearances on CNN, ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, CNBC, MSNBC, PBS NewsHour, NPR's Fresh Air, PBS’ Frontline, BBC Radio, and C-SPAN. He also has been featured in films such as Inside Job (Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature), PBS Frontline’s The Warning (Peabody Award winner), and the award-winning documentary American Casino.
Prior to entering government service, Greenberger was a partner for over 20 years in the Washington, D.C., law firm of Shea & Gardner, where he served as lead litigation counsel before courts of law nationwide, including the U.S. Supreme Court.
Greenberger is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Lafayette College and a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he served as editor-in-chief of the Law Review. He is a life member of the American Law Institute. He has served on the Board of Governors of the D.C. Bar and as a board member of three nonprofit public interest organizations. Greenberger also has served on the D.C. Circuit Advisory Committee on Procedures and as a mediator for the United States Courts for the District of Columbia.
