John Norman Maher

John N. Maher served as the Senior Executive Service (SES) General Counsel by appointment during the Presidential Administration of George W. Bush for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in Washington DC. In this position, he was the Designated Agency Ethics Official. Previously, he was a litigation partner with the international law firm of Duane Morris, LLP, and a litigation associate with the law firm of Mayer Brown, LLP (both in Chicago, Illinois).

Mr. Maher began his legal career in 1996 as a prosecutor with the 1st Infantry Division in Germany, served as legal advisor to the First Battalion, Twenty-Sixth Infantry during a peacekeeping mission to prevent the spread of ethnic cleansing near Skopje in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and completed active duty with service as defense counsel before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Arlington, Virginia, and the US Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in Washington, DC.

After active duty, Mr. Maher became a civilian trial attorney for the United States Department of Justice in Washington, DC, where he defended executive agencies of the federal government in government contract issues.

Other government service includes positions with the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), with the Office of the Judge Advocate General, Professional Responsibility Branch (Ethics), and as Chief of Contracts and Fiscal Law in Kabul for US Forces-Afghanistan (USFOR-A).

In a civilian capacity, Mr. Maher returned to Afghanistan to serve as the Program Manager implementing a federal contract at the Justice Center in Parwan, Afghanistan, training and mentoring Afghan attorneys trying insurgents, the Taliban, and IED cells at an Afghan National Security Court.

Mr. Maher has a BS, JD, MBA, LLM, and Masters of Strategic Studies from the US Army War College. After a mid-career MBA, he started a small business, Maher Funeral Home, a law firm, Maher Legal Services P.C., and a consulting firm, Misbah Maher Consultancy LLC, each in Chicago. His cases involve military court-martial appeals, defending police officers, defending federal and state employees in disciplinary matters, estate planning, and US government contracts.

A Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve, Mr. Maher serves on the Board of Directors of a nonprofit that defends military personnel accused of crime in combat, United American Patriots, on the adjunct faculty of his former MBA program, and with The John Marshall Law School in Chicago.