About the National Archives

General Counsel

Gary M. Stern

Gary M. SternGary M. Stern was appointed as NARA’s General Counsel in 1998, and also serves as NARA's Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer, Senior Agency Official for Privacy, and Dispute Resolution Specialist. Gary provides legal and policy guidance with respect to NARA's implementation of the Federal Records Act, the Presidential Records Act, and all of the other statutes, regulations, orders, and directives that govern NARA's multiple archival and records-related responsibilities. Before coming to NARA, Gary worked for the U.S. Department of Energy (1995-98), the U.S. Federal Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments (1994-95), and the Washington Office of the American Civil Liberties Union (1987-94), where he specialized in national security, classification, and information law issues. While at the ACLU, he participated as a plaintiff in Armstrong, et al. v. Executive Office of the President, the first major case involving government email recordkeeping practices, and also served as legal consultant to the National Academy of Science's Committee on Declassification of Information for the Environmental Remediation and Related Programs of the Department of Energy. Gary holds a JD from Yale Law School (1987), where he served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Journal of International Law, and an AB from Vassar College (1983), where he majored in Ancient Greek.

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