ISSUED: 7 October 2020
MEDIA CONTACT: Valerie Owens
SHEPHERDSTOWN, — Shepherd University’s Department of Sociology, Criminology, and Criminal Justice will present a virtual lecture via Zoom by attorney Briena Strippoli, United States Department of Justice attorney, on Wednesday, October 21, beginning at 1:10 p.m. Strippoli will discuss her career path and what it’s like to work for the U.S. Justice Department. She will also answer questions about law school and her work, which has taken her across the country. The event is free and open to the public.
Strippoli is a trial attorney who joined the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation (OIL) in 2007 after clerking for former Maryland circuit judge Kaye A. Allison. As an acting assistant director at OIL, Strippoli managed an appellate immigration litigation team conducting litigation in the U.S. Courts of Appeals on behalf of the U.S. Attorney General defending the Department of Homeland Security’s decisions to remove unlawful aliens from the United States. From 2011-2013, she was detailed to the Civil Division’s Aviation, Space, and Admiralty Litigation Section to join the Deepwater Horizon litigation team prosecuting BP and others for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Subsequently, Strippoli was detailed to the Commercial Litigation Branch’s Fraud Section where she worked as independent lead counsel and on trial teams investigating and litigating qui tams filed under the False Claims Act, including environmental, DoD, and healthcare fraud cases.
In 2018, Strippoli transferred to DOJ’s Environment and Natural Resources Division’s Wildlife and Marine Resources Section, where she litigates primarily in the U.S. District Courts cases related to wildlife statutes, including the Endangered Species Act, Animal Welfare Act, Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, Captive Wildlife Safety Act, and the Lacey Act.
For more information, contact Dr. Janay Gasparini, assistant professor of criminal justice, at
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