Michael Posner
Executive Director
Joined the Lawyers Committee in 1978

Michael Posner has been the Executive Director of the Lawyers Committee since its founding in 1978. Under his leadership, the Lawyers Committee has earned a distinguished reputation in the areas of political asylum law, international justice, refugee protection and workers rights.

Mike has traveled on the Lawyers Committee’s behalf to more than 50 countries and has worked on human rights issues in every region of the world. He has testified before Congress dozens of times on a wide range of issues, from refugee and workers rights to policing in Northern Ireland to the rights of torture victims worldwide.

As a member of the White House Apparel Industry Partnership Task Force, Mike helped found the Fair Labor Association, an organization that brings together corporations, local leaders, universities and NGOs to promote corporate accountability for working conditions in the apparel industry.

In 1980 Mike played a key role in proposing and campaigning for the first US law providing for political asylum, a provision added to the Refugee Act of 1980. He also proposed, drafted and campaigned for the Torture Victim Protection Act - a federal statute that was designed to give victims of the worst crimes anywhere a remedy in US courts. The TVPA was adopted by Congress and signed into law in 1992.

Before joining the Lawyers Committee, Mike was a lawyer with Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago. He lectured at Yale Law School from 1981 to 1984, and has been a visiting lecturer at Columbia University Law School since 1984.

A member of the California Bar and the Illinois Bar, he received his J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall) in 1975, and a B.A. with distinction and honors in History from the University of Michigan in 1972.