Alumnus/Alumna of the Month

Michael Waldman ’87

Read an Interview with Michael Waldman.

Michael Waldman is the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law, one of America’s preeminent legal policy organizations that focuses on democracy and justice. Waldman was director of Speechwriting for President Bill Clinton from 1995-1999, and was responsible for writing or editing nearly 2,000 speeches, including four State of the Union speeches and two Inaugural Addresses. Previously, he was special assistant to the President for Policy Coordination (1993-1995), and was the administration’s chief policy aide on political reform. He is the author of several books, including My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of American Presidents (Sourcebooks, 2003); POTUS Speaks: Finding the Words that Defined the Clinton Presidency (Simon & Schuster, 2000); and Who Robbed America? A Citizens' Guide to the Savings and Loan Scandal (Random House, 1990). He was the director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch, then the capital's largest consumer lobbying office (1989-92), a lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government (2001-03) and a partner at the firm of Cuneo, Waldman and Gilbert (2003-2005).