Rita Davis

Ms. Rita Davis serves as the Department of Defense Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel). Under the authority of the General Counsel, the Legal Counsel provides legal advice and support on all legal matters to the Department of Defense, particularly the Office of Secretary of Defense. As such, Legal Counsel supervises the Directors of the Office of Litigation Counsel, Office of Information Counsel, and Defense Office of Hearings and Appeals, as well as the Office of the Chief Prosecutor of the Military Commissions.

Previously, in 2016, Ms. Davis joined the Office of the Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Virginia as Section Chief for Trials in the Civil Litigation Division. She was the first woman and the first African American to hold that positon. The Honorable Ralph S. Northam, Governor of Virginia, then appointed Ms. Davis as Chief Counsel in January of 2018 where she was again the first woman to hold the position.

Prior to her work for the Commonwealth of Virginia, Ms. Davis graduated from Washington and Lee University with a degree in English and served three and a half years as a police officer with the Lynchburg City Police Department. Following her work with the Department, she attended the University Of Richmond School Of Law where she graduated magna cum laude. Ms. Davis clerked on the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in Little Rock, Arkansas. Upon concluding her clerkship, she joined Hunton and Williams LLP, now known as Hunton Andrews Kurth, where she practiced as a complex commercial litigator for 15 years.