Lois Lerner

Lois Lerner
Lerner testifying before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in 2014
Born	Lois Gail Lerner (1950-10-12) October 12, 1950 (age 66)
Alma mater	Northeastern University (B.A.) Western New England University School of Law (J.D.)
Occupation	Attorney, former unit director at the Internal Revenue Service

Lois Gail Lerner (born October 12, 1950) is an American attorney and former United States federal civil service employee. Lerner became director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) in 2005, and subsequently became the central figure in the 2013 IRS targeting controversy in the targeting of conservative groups, either denying them tax-exempt status outright or delaying that status until they could no longer take effective part in the 2012 election. Lerner resigned over the controversy. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, completed in 2015, found "substantial evidence of mismanagement, poor judgment and institutional inertia" but "found no evidence that any IRS official acted based on political, discriminatory, corrupt, or other inappropriate motives that would support a criminal prosecution."

Lerner graduated from Northeastern University. She earned her J.D. from the Western New England College of Law.

After graduating law school, Lerner became a staff attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division.

Lerner then joined the Federal Election Commission's (FEC) general counsel's office as an assistant general counsel in 1981. She spent twenty years at the FEC, being appointed Associate General Counsel for Enforcement (the head of the FEC's Enforcement Division) in 1986. Lerner was acting general counsel for the FEC for the first six months of 2001.

Lerner joined Internal Revenue Service in 2001, as Director of Rulings and Agreements in the Exempt Organizations function of TEGE.