After graduating from the University of Miami School of Law, Alberto J. Mora built a career spanning public service, academia, and corporate leadership. In 2001, he was appointed general counsel of the Department of the Navy, serving as the chief legal officer for the Navy and Marine Corps and managing more than 640 attorneys. After experiencing the September 11 attacks from inside the Pentagon, Mora vigorously opposed the use of cruel interrogation tactics at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere. His principled stand earned him the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2006.
After leaving the Navy, Mora served as general counsel of Walmart International and Mars, Incorporated. In 2014, he received an Advanced Leadership Initiative fellowship at Harvard University and was appointed a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, where his teaching and research focused on the policy consequences of the United States’ use of torture.
Before retiring in 2022, Mora served as the American Bar Association’s associate executive director for Global Programs. In that role, he directed the Rule of Law Initiative and Center for Human Rights and managed 500 staff members working in more than 50 countries. He also returned to Miami Law to deliver the Louis Henkin Lecture on Human Rights, addressing foreign policy and the use of torture to extract information from prisoners. Mora’s commitment to ethics in the practice of law continues to inspire the global Miami Law community.
What aspects of the curriculum or faculty had the most significant impact on your legal education and career trajectory?
There were three elements that had a particular impact: First, moot court was instrumental in developing my oral advocacy skills. Second, my work with the University of Miami Inter-American Law Review (then called the Lawyer of the Americas), first as a staffer and then as editor-in-chief, materially helped improve my legal writing and analytical skills. Third, my sense of how law and policy interact – which would become one of my principal areas of interest during my legal career – was greatly enhanced by the course, Law and Economics.
How did your education at the University of Miami School of Law prepare you for your career?
What attracted me to law was the drama and challenge of the courtroom and I spent the first decade of my career as a civil litigator practicing in Miami. Miami Law prepared me for this stage of my career by impressing on me the importance of addressing legal issues with precision and rigor and providing me with the analytical and expository skills to do so.
What opportunities or connections did you gain at the law school, and how did they influence your career?
I chose Miami Law because I intended to focus my practice in Miami, where I would be close to my parents and family. Although my life and legal practice would take me outside of the city, UM grads would prove to be a constant and important presence as partners or colleagues throughout my professional life. Also, the wonderful Georgina Angones has played an important and welcome role in helping ensure that I was always connected to the law school, its leadership, and its faculty.
