Brendan Philbin is a Senior Counsel who brings over 15 years of diverse legal advisory and litigation experience to Liberty Justice Center. Brendan began his legal career in 2009 as an active-duty Navy Judge Advocate (JAG) where he tried 12 courts martial to verdict, litigated over 100 administrative separation boards, and served as a judicial clerk on the Navy-Marine Corps Court of Criminal Appeals (NMCCA).  In 2011 he deployed to Afghanistan to lead a team of Afghan prosecutors who convicted 110 captured enemy insurgents in Afghanistan’s nascent national security court. Brendan continues to serve in the U.S. Navy Reserve.

After leaving active-duty Naval service, Brendan worked as in-house counsel at Bank of America providing consumer financial regulatory guidance and responses to regulatory inquiries and examinations from bank regulators. Subsequently, he joined the City of Philadelphia Law Department’s Code and Public Nuisance Litigation Unit. There he worked directly with local and state law enforcement and city inspectors to investigate owners of properties used for criminal activity and in violation of city building and licensing codes and prosecute those cases in administrative boards and federal and state court.  Brendan also defended the city against a class action Constitutional challenge to the city’s municipal fine structure and in a challenge to the city’s homeless encampment policies.  Prior to joining Liberty Justice Center, Brendan was a legal advisor for law enforcement operations at the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service where he advised on all aspects of protecting federal facilities and on the Department’s counter-drone (C-UAS) program.

Brendan graduated from the Temple University Beasley School of Law. Brendan holds a B.B.A. in Accounting from the University of Notre Dame and a Masters of Accountancy from The George Washington University. He resides in Annapolis, Maryland.