The Thrill of the Case: Dennis Barghaan, '96, Practices the Art of Persuasion as an Assistant U.S. Attorney

“Your Honor, good morning, Dennis Barghaan on behalf of the United States of America.”

Not many people start their workday with a sentence like this, but Barghaan, an assistant U.S. attorney, admits it’s a sentence that doesn’t get old – even after eight years.

“There’s just something special about representing the government and representing the United States,” Barghaan, ’96, said. “Because I am assigned to the Civil Division of our office, I am responsible for representing the United States or any of its employees in civil litigation instituted in the Eastern District of Virginia.”

During his eight years with the Department of Justice, Barghaan has had the opportunity to represent the CIA, the Department of Defense and the Patent and Trademark Office among other agencies and officials. He considers the highlight of his career thus far to be representing former Attorney General John Ashcroft in New York City in regards to the government’s response to Sept. 11.

Even though Barghaan spends much of his time arguing cases before either the federal district court or a federal court of appeals, he says there is no such thing as a normal day on the job.

On any given day, he could be writing a legal brief, taking or defending a deposition involving a federal employee or advising a federal agency about a course of action. “It is really diverse, which is part of the excitement inherent in my position,” Barghaan said.

Although Barghaan enjoys the diversity and the intellectual challenges of the job, it wasn’t always clear that this is the career path he would take.

“When I began at Richmond, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted to do,” he said. “I thought I might want to be a sports journalist. But as I hit my senior year, I began to develop an interest in legal theory.”

He decided to go to William and Mary Law School after graduation and found that he had a knack for understanding legal concepts. After he graduated from law school, he spent a year working for a federal appellate judge in New Jersey before he was hired by the Department of Justice where he traveled around the country for a couple of years representing federal employees. Eventually, he decided he wanted a job that was a little more settled, so he applied for his current position.

He’s glad he did. And he still remembers the first case he ever argued.

“I was nervous as all heck,” he recalled. “It wasn’t an earth-shattering case or anything like that. I got up very early that morning, got there early, and paced around the conference room for about two hours.”

Now if he’s early, he finds a Starbucks.

“That’s not to say that when I have a big case, I don’t get nervous,” he said. “The level of the case dictates how many butterflies I have.”

Barghaan says he also uses his Jepson education on a daily basis and is grateful for his time at the University of Richmond. It was then that he met his future wife, Laura Phillips Barghaan, ’96, a political science major who is also a practicing attorney now. Although they knew each other when they were undergraduates, they went their separate ways after college. The two didn’t reconnect until their five year reunion.

As for his Jepson experience, he says he often describes it as learning “life skills.”

“Every single day I am required to persuade someone that a particular conclusion is correct,” he said. “Part of that is understanding people, understanding what those people consider important, and how to equate that to a common goal that we all share. That’s the essence of leadership, and it is something that any attorney has to practice everyday.”