Lisa Ellman

Lisa Ellman co-chairs the Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Group for Hogan Lovells, a global law firm, where she’s a leading public policy lawyer focusing on domestic drones and other emerging technologies.

Throughout her career, Lisa has worked to bridge the sizable knowledge gap between government policymaking and business innovation. Lisa has held a variety of positions at top levels of the Executive branch at the White House and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ). In a series of presidential appointments, Lisa led work on high-priority policy initiatives for the Obama administration on issues spanning from open and transparent government to domestic use of UAS. Most recently, she led DOJ's effort to develop policy that would govern the use of UAS in the United States. She also represented DOJ in the federal interagency process considering UAS-related policy issues that are shared across departments and agencies.

Lisa has counseled businesses and trade groups in industries ranging from newsgathering and television production, to aerial photography and energy, to precision agriculture and insurance, to higher education, drones technology, and real estate–and everything in between.

Lisa's opinions are often featured in publications and news broadcasts such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Associated Press, Fortune Magazine, Crain’s New York Business, NBC News San Francisco, San Francisco Chronicle, Bloomberg News Radio, HuffPost Live, and others. In February 2015, Lisa was featured in Fortune magazine's "Most Powerful Women" series for her efforts to develop policy to govern drone use in the United States.

Lisa also has campaign experience with the Obama for America primary campaign and with the Obama-Biden Transition Team, where she led the effort to designate leadership for all Federal government agencies on President Obama’s first day in office.

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