Glenn Fine

Glenn Fine is a nonresident fellow in the Governance Studies program at The Brookings Institution.

Fine served as the Inspector General for the Department of Justice from 2000 to 2011 in the Clinton, Bush, and Obama Administrations. As the Inspector General, he supervised and issued reports of investigations and audits on many high-profile issues facing the Department of Justice.

After practicing law at a firm, Fine returned to government, and in January 2016 he became the Acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense. In this role, he led the largest inspector general’s office with more than 1700 staff in 50 offices around the country and the world, for over four years.

Fine has testified more than 50 times before Congressional committees and has written articles on the role of inspectors general, federal investigations, and management in federal agencies. He has received numerous honors for his inspector general work, including being named the Lawyer of the Year by the National Law Journal.

Fine graduated from Harvard College, where he majored in economics. He was the co-captain of the Harvard basketball team and was selected in the 10th round of the 1979 NBA draft by the San Antonio Spurs. Instead of trying out for the Spurs, he attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship.

Fine earned a law degree from Harvard Law School. After law school, he worked as an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington D.C. Fine is an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law School. He also has taught as a lecturer in law at Stanford Law School.

Fine published a book in 2024 on the role of inspectors general called “Watchdogs: Inspectors General and the Battle for Honest and Accountable Government.”