Mike Signer is managing principal of Madison Law & Strategy Group, PLLC, a boutique law firm where he focuses on energy, financial regulation, and national security.  He also chairs the New Dominion Project PAC, an organization that shines a spotlight on the business leaders, activists, and ideas that are taking Virginia to the next level, with a focus on innovation, reform, and unity.  For five years, he has been an adjunct professor at Virginia Tech’s Master’s Program in Public and International Affairs in Alexandria, Virginia.  Mike also served as a counselor to Governor Mark Warner, advising the governor on issues ranging from executive clemency to civil settlements to FOIA requests.  He previously belonged to the Public Policy and Strategy and Government Litigation groups at the international law firm WilmerHale.

In 2009, Mike was a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor of Virginia.  He is a member of the Economic Club of Washington and the Northern Virginia Democratic Business Council.  Mike has helped direct six election protection programs in Virginia and founded and co-chaired the New Electoral Reform Alliance for Virginia.  In 2009, Governor Tim Kaine appointed Mike to Virginia’s Board of Medicine, which oversees licensing and policy issues related to over 50,000 doctors in the Commonwealth.

In 2010, Mike traveled to Panjshir Province, Afghanistan, as a member of a U.S. government-sponsored mission to monitor Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections. He is the author of Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), a book about democracy, American history, and national security.  In 2008, top Obama advisors enlisted Mike to sit on a “red team” advising the campaign on national security strategy. Mike belongs to the fiduciary Board of Directors of the Truman National Security Project Educational Institute.  He served as chief foreign policy advisor to the 2008 John Edwards for President campaign.  Mike has published in outlets including The Richmond Times-Dispatch, The Washington Post, The New Republic, USA Today, and U.S. News & World Report, and has appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR.   He holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of California at Berkeley, where he was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; a J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law; and a B.A., magna cum laude, from Princeton University.  He is a member of the Virginia and Washington, D.C. Bars.