William LaForge

William N. LaForge is a retired attorney, lobbyist, university

president and professor, and congressional staff member. His

career has been a blend of government service, private sector

law and government relations practice, and higher education.

For more than forty years, he was involved with law and federal

public policy in all three branches of government.

On Capitol Hill, Bill served as senior legislative counsel to

Republican and Democratic lawmakers in both houses of

Congress. He was clerk and chief counsel of the U.S. Senate

Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, chief legislative

counsel and chief of staff to United States Senator Thad

Cochran (R-MS), and legislative assistant to Congressman David

Bowen (D-MS). He also served in the executive branch as

congressional liaison for the Peace Corps.

In the private sector, Bill was the DC office managing

shareholder for the Winstead law firm, and previously worked

as general counsel and of counsel with firms in Washington. A

registered lobbyist, he specialized in federal government

relations and public policy advocacy, and he represented

businesses and organizations with public policy interests before

the United States Congress and federal executive branch

agencies.

As a U.S. Senate committee professional staff member, Bill organized

and helped conduct numerous congressional hearings. In the

private sector, he prepared a wide array of written testimony

for clients, advised and trained witnesses appearing before

congressional committees, and testified as a hearing witness

himself.

Bill is a member of the bars of The District of Columbia and

Mississippi, as well as the United States Supreme Court and

several other federal courts, and he is past national president

of the Federal Bar Association. He is a frequent speaker and

resource on the topics of government and congressional

relations, the congressional hearings process, and the

congressional appropriations process. He was an adjunct

professor at George Washington University for 30 years, where

he taught courses in the fields of commercial law, public policy,

lobbying, and business-government relations. He also served as

an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and he has

been a visiting professor of law at universities in Poland,

Bulgaria, and Russia, twice as a Fulbright Specialist. He served

as the eighth president of Delta State University from 2013 to

2022.

Bill graduated with honors from Delta State University, earned

his J.D. from the University of Mississippi School of Law,

received an LL.M. in international law from Georgetown

University, and studied international and European law at The

University of Cambridge. He received fellowships to study

government and public policy in the European Union and at the

Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and he is

the recipient of an honorary doctorate of laws from the Stetson

University College of Law.

An avid runner, he has completed 61

marathons, including 24 Boston Marathons, and he has logged

more than 80,000 miles running. He plays guitar at his church

and in an oldies rock and roll band.