Featured Madisonian

Ronald J. Tenpas, Alumnus

Ronald Tenpas (IR '85) is a partner in the D.C. law offices of Morgan Lewis. He most recently served as Associate Deputy Attorney General as the U.S. Department of Justice's top environmental attorney. Tenpas served a total of 12 years in the Justice Department. He worked as Assistant United States Attorney, Associate Deputy Attorney General, and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois before becoming Assistant Attorney General for the ENRD.

Tenpas previously served as an Assistant United States Attorney and Branch Chief in the District of Maryland, Southern Division, and prior to that as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Middle District of Florida in Tampa, Florida. He has tried and investigated a large number of matters, including offenses involving narcotics importation and distribution, violent crime, health care fraud, identity theft, government fraud, other white collar offenses, and public corruption. Tenpas previously served as a law clerk to the Honorable Louis H. Pollak, United States District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, United States Supreme Court, and to the Honorable Howard Holtzmann, judge on the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal located in The Hague, The Netherlands. He also was an associate with the Carlton, Fields law firm in Tampa, Florida. Tenpas graduated from Madison with high honors. He was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to attend Oxford University where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics, receiving a degree in 1987. After Oxford, Tenpas was awarded a Hardy Cross Dillard Scholarship to attend the University of Virginia Law School from which he graduated in 1990. He served as Editor-in-Chief of the Virginia Law Review, was elected to Order of the Coif, and at graduation was awarded the Margaret Hyde Award, given to the graduate whose scholarship, character, personality, activities in the affairs of the school, and promise of efficiency have, in the opinion of the law faculty, entitled him or her to special recognition.