Robert C. O'Brien is an American attorney who was nominated[1] by President George W. Bush on November 10, 2005 and confirmed by the US Senate as the US Alternate Representative to the 60th session of the United Nations General Assembly, which met in New York 2005-2006. In addition to his other duties as a US delegate, he addressed the General Assembly on the question of Palestine and represented the United States in the General Assembly's Sixth Committee, which considered the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
O'Brien currently serves as Co-Chairman of the United States Department of State's Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan,[2] launched in December 2007 by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. On [3] July 31, 2008, President George W. Bush announced his intention to appoint O'Brien to serve in his administration as a member of the Cultural Property Advisory Committee and represent the interests of the general public, for the remainder of a three-year term expiring April 25, 2011.[4]
O'Brien is the partner-in-charge of the Los Angeles office of Arent Fox LLP, a national law firm. He has represented Dr. Buzz Aldrin in a number of high-profile cases and was the federal court-appointed Discovery Master in the MGA v. Mattel (“Barbie v. Bratz”) case.
In October 2011, Robert was named to Mitt Romney’s Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team as Co-Chair of the International Organizations Work Group.[5]
From 1996 to 1998, O'Brien was a legal officer with the United Nations Security Council (Compensation Commission) in Geneva, Switzerland, where he led a multinational team of attorneys, loss adjusters and accountants in the government claims (F) section and was responsible for the United Nations Secretariat's review and processing of billions of dollars in claims resulting from Iraq's 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait. He also served as a major in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the US Army Reserve.
O’Brien is a frequent commentator on foreign affairs and national security issues for publications such as CBS News.com, Huffington Post, Daily Caller, Newsmax and Australian Conservative. His law review articles on international law and civil procedure have been widely published.
In 2011, O'Brien was selected as one of the Top 100 Lawyers by the Daily Journal. O'Brien received the 2011 Stefan A. Riesenfeld Memorial Award from the Boalt Hall School of Law for his contributions to the field of international law. In 2009, O’Brien received the Erwin Chemerinsky Defender of the Constitution Award from the Federal Bar Association for his work promoting the rule of law in Afghanistan. He also received the J. Reuben Clark Law Society's Outstanding Lawyer award in the same year and was the 2006 recipient of the Cardinal Newman High School Alumni Scholarship/Leadership Award for Public Service. In 2008 and 2010, he was recognized as one of the nation’s top attorneys in the 4th and 5th annual Lawdragon 500 Leading Lawyers in America guides. O’Brien was named one of the top 100 Irish-American lawyers in the United States by Irish America magazine in 2009 and 2010. He was selected as a Super Lawyer and Rising Star by Los Angeles Magazine and Southern California Law and Politics Magazine for 2004-2010. In 2004, the Daily Journal named Robert one of the top 20 lawyers in California under the age of 40.
Born in Los Angeles, California, O'Brien attended Cardinal Newman High School in Santa Rosa, California. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, and his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California, Los Angeles.