The Office of Counsel (OC) is a component of the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General (DOE OIG) that provides accurate, timely, and actionable legal advice on all issues material to DOE OIG’s mission and operations.
We act as a trusted partner for our organizational clients within DOE OIG by ensuring an understanding of the legal aspects of the actions of DOE, including its subagencies and affiliated agencies, and DOE OIG. We represent DOE OIG’s interests in a variety of settings and ensure that the organization’s work products, both internally and externally, are legally sound. We deliver training on the full breadth of our portfolio to help facilitate DOE OIG’s audits, inspections, and investigations. With the exception of areas where we take lead responsibility, we do not make operational decisions except to ensure legal sufficiency and consistency with legal authorities.
We take lead responsibility for several DOE OIG functions, including in the areas of:
- Issue-specific legal advice and report legal reviews;
- Subpoena reviews;
- Criminal and civil litigation (e.g. Special Assistant United States Attorney designation);
- Freedom of Information Act / Privacy Act requests and litigation;
- Ethics advice and approvals;
- Suspension & debarment; and
- Personnel legal advice and litigation.
A member of OC is designated in the statutory position of DOE OIG Whistleblower Protection Coordinator under the IG Act. Members of OC also hold Department-specific titles such as Ethics Official, Program Records Official, Records Liaison Official (Primary), and Departmental Element Designated Controlled Unclassified Information Official.
Our staff includes a Chief Counsel, Deputy Chief Counsel, Senior Associate Counsel, Senior Investigative Counsel, a Government Information Specialist, and a Records and Information Management Specialist.