David Kris

Co-Founder and Partner, Culper Partners LLC

David Kris is a founder of Culper Partners LLC. An expert in intelligence, law enforcement and security issues, he has more than 25 years of experience in government, the private sector, and academia.

Prior to forming Culper, Mr. Kris was for six years the General Counsel of Intellectual Ventures, a privately held invention investment company with more than $6B under management and offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. He was also the Deputy General Counsel and Chief Compliance officer of Time Warner, Inc., the network and media company. He is currently an outside advisor to Cybereason, the cybersecurity firm.

In government, Mr. Kris was the Presidentially-appointed and Senate-confirmed head of the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, with responsibility for all federal espionage and terrorism investigations and prosecutions and use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act; a senior advisor to Republican and Democratic Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General; and a federal prosecutor for more than eight years. He currently serves on advisory boards for two elements of the U.S. Intelligence Community and as an amicus curiae to the two Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts.

An authority on U.S. foreign intelligence surveillance, Mr. Kris is co-author of the leading treatise in the field, National Security Investigations and Prosecutions (3d ed., 2019), as well as the author of several other articles and blog posts. He is a member of the board of directors and a Contributing Editor of the Lawfareblog, adjunct professor at the University of Washington Law School, and a University Affiliate at Georgetown University.

Mr. Kris is the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the National Intelligence Superior Service Medal, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service, the CIA Agency Seal Medal, the Department of Justice Edmund J. Randolph Award, and on two occasions the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service, the Department of Justice’s highest honor.  

He is a 1988 graduate of Haverford College and a 1991 graduate of Harvard Law School, and a former law clerk to Judge Stephen S. Trott of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.