Ayodele Afolabi Olosunde, Esq., is a Partner with the Firm. Prior to joining the Firm, Attorney Olosunde was a GS-15 level federal employee of the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ). He served as an Assistant General Counsel to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) for over a decade, from 2010 to 2021. As a national security law “operational attorney,” Attorney Olosunde provided real time legal guidance and support to FBI personnel in all aspects of active counterterrorism investigations, disruptions/interdictions, and subsequent prosecutions. He supported complex classified litigation and led teams of attorneys to ensure FBI compliance with constitutional, statutory and regulatory requirements for the authorization, acquisition, retention, and dissemination of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) based intelligence. Mr. Olosunde developed FBI policy for interagency cooperation and use of FISA information to support the missions of various U.S. government counterterrorism partners.
Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Olosunde served as an Assistant District Attorney with the Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor for the City of New York from 1999-2010. There, he prosecuted felony narcotics crimes in complex criminal litigation involving large scale narcotics traffickers, transnational organized crime actors, and violent narcotics gangs. Mr. Olosunde has prosecuted scores of jury trials to verdict and prosecuted hundreds of matters to successful disposition.
In 2015 Mr. Olosunde served as Resident Legal Advisor (RLA), detailed from USDOJ to the State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Mr. Olosunde led a team of 20 attorneys in the Federal Ministry of Justice (Nigeria’s equivalent of USDOJ) in developing maritime prosecution capacity in Nigeria. Over the course of a single year, Mr. Olosunde and his team wrote legislation (“Acts To Provide For The Suppression of Piracy And Other Maritime Offences”) that became black letter law in Nigeria in 2019. Mr. Olosunde worked directly with the Attorney General of Nigeria himself, as well as Nigerian Supreme Court Justices and federal Senators, in what would become one of his most rewarding professional experiences.
Mr. Olosunde holds a Juris Doctor (JD) degree from the New York Law School, graduating in 1994; an MBA (Finance & Economics) in 1996 from New York University (NYU), Leonard N. Stern School of Business, and a BA (Political Science) from Cornell University in 1990. Mr. Olosunde is admitted to the New York State Bar, the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the United States Supreme Court.
ATTORNEY OLOSUNDE IS NOT ADMITTED TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR. HIS DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PRACTICE IS LIMITED TO PROVIDING LEGAL SERVICES TO MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC SOLELY BEFORE SPECIAL COURTS, DEPARTMENTS, AND AGENCIES OF THE UNITED STATES.