Career Alternatives, Health Care / Medicine, Public Interest

Serving The Public Interest Outside The Practice Of Law: An Interview With Jenny Mosier

Jenny Mosier left a high-powered Justice Department job to take on a new and important mission.

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Here at Above the Law, we occasionally profile lawyers who have left the practice of law to focus on other worthwhile pursuits. I recently spoke with Jenny Mosier, a former Department of Justice official and Covington & Burling associate, about her important and inspiring new path. Here’s what we discussed.

DL: Jenny, thanks for taking the time to join us. You and your husband Mark Mosier have impressive legal careers. Can you tell us a bit about your respective paths through the profession?

JM: Mark and I met when we attended the University of Chicago Law School. Following graduation, Mark first did a clerkship with then-Chief Judge Tacha of the Tenth Circuit. He then was honored to begin a clerkship with Chief Justice Rehnquist, though it was a difficult time, and the Chief Justice unfortunately passed away a few weeks after Mark started clerking for him. Mark stayed at the Supreme Court to clerk for Chief Justice Roberts. From his clerkship, Mark went into private practice with Covington & Burling LLP, where he is a partner with a focus on appellate work.

DL: And you have also had a career featuring both private practice and public service.

JM: At the time Mark joined Covington, I had been practicing there as a litigation associate for three years. In 2010, I left Covington to join the Office of the Attorney General at the Department of Justice, where I was fortunate to have a portfolio that included a wide variety of areas within the Department. On any given day, I would focus on work ranging from antitrust and intellectual property to the United States Marshals Service and the Bureau of Prisons. I also served as our office’s lead on the matters involving LGBT issues, which during my time included the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and the same-sex marriage litigation. I was serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to Attorney General Eric Holder at the time when my son, Michael, became ill.

DL: Which brings us to your departure from the Department to focus on a new venture with a critical mission. Can you tell us a bit about the Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation?

JM: On September 4, 2014, we learned the devastating news that our son, Michael, had a tumor in his brainstem referred to as DIPG (diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma). DIPG typically strikes kids between ages four and eleven, and most survive only nine months. I immediately went on leave from my job — as did Mark — and we stayed home to care for Michael.

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The nature of the disease, which impacts hundreds of kids in the U.S. alone each year, is that it steals all of a child’s motor functions, though their minds remain intact. In just a matter of weeks, our healthy, energetic six-year-old boy went from playing baseball and soccer and boarding the bus for kindergarten to needing a wheelchair and losing the ability to control the left side of his body (his dominant side). In this nightmare situation, Mark and I were both so fortunate that our friends and colleagues at both Covington and the Justice Department ensured that we could stay home to care for Michael.

Unfortunately, after an eight-and-a-half-month battle, Michael passed away on May 17, 2015. I had remained on leave from DOJ, and while trying to deal with the loss of my son, I also wrestled with whether to return to my job which I truly loved.

DL: I can’t imagine how difficult that must have been for you. What did you decide in the end?

JM: Ultimately, Michael’s death changed my course, and my heart pushed me in a new direction. After Michael passed away, we created the Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation, a nonprofit focused on promoting awareness and raising research funds for DIPG. Though other pediatric cancers have made great strides in the past few decades, DIPG has remained with near zero percent survival. Fortunately, in the past few years, with new technology and access to tumor tissue, there is finally real hope for effective treatments and a cure. The disease (like all pediatric cancer) is woefully underfunded, though, so we will be working to drive resources to the research that is needed to move the needle and save these kids’ lives. I serve as the Foundation’s Executive Director, and we are committed to making an impact so that other families struck by this horrible disease are not told that there is nothing that can be done.

DL: It’s fitting that we are speaking in September, which is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. What can Above the Law readers do to support the work of the Foundation and to combat DIPG?

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JM: Of course, a key way to support our efforts is through making a donation. DIPG researchers rely almost exclusively on private funding from foundations like ours to support their efforts to find effective treatments and a cure, and we are committing 100 percent of general donations to that research (minus any processing fees for online donations). But beyond financial support, readers can help by being a voice for these children. We had not heard of DIPG prior to Michael’s diagnosis, even though this is one of the deadliest childhood cancers that steals hundreds of lives every year in the U.S. alone. We ask that people sign up for our emails, follow us on social media, and join our team. By speaking out and telling others about DIPG, it will help build the coalition of advocates who are committed to saving these kids’ lives. We are grateful to you and Above the Law for speaking with us and helping to raise awareness by sharing our story.

DL: Thank you for taking the time, Jenny — and thank you for your important work. Best of luck to you and the Foundation in this crucial fight.

Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation [official website]
Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation [Facebook]
Michael Mosier Defeat DIPG Foundation [Twitter]
Meet The 6-Year-Old Who Raised Over $60,000 For Cancer Research While Battling A Brain Tumor [Huffington Post]

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