Debra L. Roth

About Ms. Roth

Ms. Roth provides legal services to high level employees and agencies on a wide range of employment law issues.  In addition, to litigating every type of misconduct and performance personnel action across almost every government agency, she represents executives (career and political), managers, supervisors, federal law enforcement officers in Inspector General, administrative internal, and congressional investigations.  Ms. Roth’s practice also includes representing federal employees, applicants, and contractors in security clearance and suitability proceedings.

For more than 20 years, Ms. Roth has been nationally known for providing legal services to dozens of government agencies in personnel matters involving high level employees and other sensitive positions, on a multitude of personnel law and employment discrimination matters.  She has assisted agencies with employee relations, EEO, and labor relations issues on sensitive or complex personnel matters for which a conflict of interest exists in the agency’s office of general counsel.  This has included representation of agencies before the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, defense of EEO complaints before the EEOC, and conducting misconduct and other management investigations, into integrity issues, violations of agency rules of conduct, and harassment/hostile work environment (Faragher and Ellerth) investigations.

Because she provides legal services to both employees and agencies alike, she is a uniquely qualified attorney understanding both sides of the employment relationship which enhances her client’s interests in achieving their legal objectives. 

Ms. Roth has also been at the forefront of constitutional and statutory public sector litigation in the federal district courts and courts of appeals, involving the Appointment’s Clause and Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Ms. Roth also provides legal services to small private sector employers on an array of employment matters including, federal anti-discrimination and civil rights laws, employment contracts, EEO training, civil rights investigations, and human resources policies and procedures.

Ms. Roth currently serves as General Counsel to the Senior Executives Association.

For more than 20 years, Ms. Roth has been retained by the U.S. Department of Justice to act as private defense counsel for a variety of federal employees sued personally in Bivens and Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 lawsuits when the Justice Department determines a conflict exists with direct DOJ representation.  Her experience includes representation of high-level officials and employees, Bureau of Prison guards and wardens, and federal law enforcement officers from across the federal law enforcement community.  The legal matters range from every-day law enforcement or prison security activities to past and recent matters involving national security or public interest.  Her representation has been in the federal district and appellate courts, as well as the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Ms. Roth is also a frequent lecturer, sharing her unique and specialized knowledge and experience on federal and public employment law at conferences and seminars for public sector executives, attorneys, and employee relations professionals.  In addition to being a frequent lecturer, she serves as an Advisory Board member on the Federal Dispute Resolution training conference which is a premiere annual conference on federal personnel law.  Ms. Roth also appears on a variety of radio shows and regularly hosts the law firm’s podcast FEDtalk on Federal News Network.

Ms. Roth also appeared on 60 Minutes with CBS News Correspondent Norah O’Donnell for an investigative report into the years’ long presidential appointee vacancies at the Merit Systems Protection Board.  Ms. Roth provided critical insight into the Board’s functioning and purpose, and discussed the impact on the functioning of government and the federal workforce because of the historic length of the lack of quorum at the Board.

Ms. Roth has developed a national reputation for handling the most sensitive personnel matters, using her specialized knowledge in public sector law, forward-thinking strategies, diplomacy, and discretion for each client she represents.

Areas of Practice

• Federal Personnel and Employment Law

• Private Sector Employers

• Federal Agency (GSA Schedule) Legal Services

• Security Clearances

• Bivens Representation

• FOIA and Privacy Act

• Employment Law Training

• Association Law

Speeches & Presentations

• Panelist, Federal Circuit Bar Association, September 2, 2021, Best Practices in Litigating Chapter 43 Performance-Based Actions

• Presenter, D.C. Bar Federal Personnel Law Series/Investigations – 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016, 2019.

• Presentation, National Council of Social Security Management Associations 49th Annual Meeting, September 25, 2018: State of the Federal Civil Service Personnel System 40 years later.

• Panelist, Heritage Foundation on the Hill, June 4, 2018: Rightsizing Government – How congress can give federal agencies the authority they need, Session One: Excessive Obstacles to Firing Federal employees.

• Panelist, Judicial Conference of the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, March 16, 2018, Civil Service Reform: Glimpses of a Path Forward?

• Panelist, American Bar Association Section of Labor and Employment Law, Federal Sector Labor and Employment Law Committee, midyear meeting February 2018, Merit Systems Protection Board Update session.

Significant Cases

• Represented career senior executive in Esparraguera v. Department of Army, 101 F.4th 28 (2024), a due process challenge to performance-based demotion from Senior Executive Service to General Schedule position, culminating in landmark decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.  This landmark decision held that career SESers have a property right in their SES appointment and cannot be demoted to the General Schedule in a performance action without due process.  Prior to this landmark decision, career senior executives who were subjected to performance actions were demoted from their SES position to a General Schedule position without any due process.  In holding that an SES appointee had a protected property interest in her career SES status, the D.C. Circuit held a career senior executive could not be demoted to the General Schedule through a performance action without constitutionally adequate procedures consistent with the Fifth Amendment Due Process Clause, including notice and an opportunity to respond before the action takes effect. Ms. Roth represented the SES appointee along with attorneys from MoloLamken LLP.

• Court appointed Amicus Curiae in Santos v. National Aeronautics & Space Admin., 990 F.3d 1355 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (determining for the first time that an agency must prove the justification for the institution of a performance improvement plan when the agency predicates removal on the employee's unacceptable performance).

• Lovelien, et al. v. United States, et al., 422 F.Supp.3d 341 (D.D.C. 2019) (granting motion to dismiss Bivens suit bringing First and Fourth Amendment claims against BLM Special Agent-in-Charge of the 2014 Bunkerville, NV standoff); aff’d 853 F.App’x 676 (D.C. Cir. 2021).

• Co-lead counsel for Petitioner Helman in Helman v. Department of Veterans Affairs, 856 F.3d 920 (2017) (determining that portions of newly enacted personnel statute that prohibited presidentially appointed Members of the Merit System Protection Board from reviewing administrative judges' decisions violated the Appointments Clause to the U.S. Constitution).

• Represented Respondent Coffman in Special Counsel v. Coffman, 124 M.S.P.R. 130 (2017) (holding that the OSC is required to prove employee acted intentionally in committing allegedly unlawful hiring practices and not when the evidence only established negligence or error; and finding that Petitioner was selectively prosecuted by OSC).

• Co-represented Associate BOP Warden in Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843 (2017) in a landmark Bivens decision that called an end to an era in which the judiciary decides whether to extend a Bivens cause of action to “a new context” absent clear legislative intent to do so. (Declined to extend Bivens to the federal officials’ detention policy of foreign nationals detained as part of the U.S. government’s response to the September 11th attacks because the claims arose in a new Bivens context).

• Rubens v. Department of Veterans Affairs, MSPB No. PH-0707-16-0151-J-1, 2016 WL 526831 (Feb. 1, 2016) (reversing Deputy Secretary’s decision under newly enacted personnel statute to demote a Senior Executive Service Director to a General Schedule position).

• Co-represented Associate BOP Warden in Turkmen v. Hasty, 789 F.3d 218 (2d Cir. 2015), judgment rev'd in part, vacated in part sub nom. Ziglar v. Abbasi, 137 S. Ct. 1843 (2017) (precursor to Ziglar v. Abbasi: SCOTUS case addressing whether claims of improper treatment in confinement made by foreign nationals detained as part of the U.S. government’s response to the September 11th attacks could be brought in a Bivens cause of action).

• Prouty v. General Services Administration, 122 M.S.P.R. 117 (2014) (holding that the agency failed to produce evidence that GSA Senior Executives knew or had reasons to know of purchasing decisions made in the planning of an agency conference that provoked GSA conference scandal), citing Prouty v. Gen. Servs. Admin., M.S.P.B. Docket No. DE-0752-12-0396-I-1 (Mar. 11, 2013) (finding that OIG report constitutes summary, unsworn hearsay and is insufficient to support charges when the agency fails to submit evidence underlying the report).

• Co-represented INS District Director for New York City in Arar v. Ashcroft, 585 F.3d 559 (2d Cir. 2009) (en banc), cert. denied, 560 U.S. 978 (2010) (declining to recognize Bivens against the government officials who were allegedly complicit in the removal of a foreign national from the United States and his subsequent confinement in Syria).