Michael Vatis is currently a partner at the law firm, Steptoe & Johnson LLP. His practice focuses on Internet, e-commerce, and technology matters, providing legal advice and strategic counsel on matters involving privacy, security, encryption, intelligence, law enforcement, Internet gambling, and international regulation of Internet content. 

At the time of his Montgomery Fellowship, Vatis served as Director of the Institute for Security Technology Studies (ISTS) at Dartmouth. As Director, Vatis led ISTS in its mission as a national counterterrorism and cyber security research and development center. 

Prior to joining ISTS, Vatis founded and served as the first Director of the National Infrastructure Protection Center (NIPC) in Washington, D.C. NIPC is the lead federal agency responsible for detecting, warning of and responding to cyber attacks, including computer crime, cyber terrorism and cyber espionage. 

As an attorney, Vatis has also served in the U.S. Departments of Justice and Defense. As Associate Deputy Attorney General and Deputy Director for the Executive Office for National Security, he developed policy and advised the Attorney General on national security issues, including high-tech crime, encryption, counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, foreign policy, defense and infrastructure protection.

Additionally, Vatis has been a Senior Fellow at New York University Law School’s Center on Law and Security and a member of many organizations focused on counterterrorism, intelligence, and technology issues. Vatis has also testified many times before congressional committees on counterterrorism, intelligence, and cyber security issues.

Vatis’ Montgomery Fellowship was part of the lecture series, “Intelligence: The Need to Know,” during which he delivered the lecture, “The Making of Intelligence: Problems in Intelligence, Counterintelligence, and Counterterrorism.”