James Comey, a former deputy attorney general and current chief counsel to Lockheed Martin, will deliver a speech at an event sponsored by the Center on Law and Government at the UNC School of Law.

The event is free and open to the public, and will occur Thursday, Feb. 21, at noon in the UNC School of Law's Rotunda.

"He has distinguished himself as a prosecutor and leading Justice Department official in the critical months and years after the devastating terrorist attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001," said Michael Gerhardt, the center's director and Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor in Constitutional Law. "He has some extraordinary insights into the challenges faced by the Justice Department and particularly to prosecutors post-9/11."

Comey joined Lockheed Martin in 2006 from the U.S. Department of Justice, where he had served as deputy attorney general since December 2003. In this position, he oversaw many important government cases, including terrorism and securities fraud prosecutions. Previously, he served as U.S. attorney for the Southern district of New York, where he had earlier been an assistant U.S. attorney and lead prosecutor in the highly publicized United States v. John Gambino racketeering and murder trial.

From 1996 through 2001, he was managing assistant U.S. attorney in charge of the Richmond division of the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern district of Virginia. In that position, he handled the Khobar Towers terrorist bombing case, arising out of the June 1996 attack on a U.S. military facility in Saudi Arabia in which 19 U.S. Air Force members were killed and hundreds wounded.