Michael Signer

Michael "Mike" Signer is the Mayor of Charlottesville, Virginia and an author, advocate, political theorist, and attorney. He is a longstanding Virginia Democratic activist and former candidate for lieutenant governor. He is a lecturer at the University of Virginia.

Signer is the author of Becoming Madison: The Extraordinary Origins of the Least Likely Founding Father (PublicAffairs 2015), a book about leadership and statesmanship that is also an intellectual and psychological biography of young James Madison and his rivalry with his nemesis Patrick Henry in the ratification of the U.S. Constitution.

Signer wrote Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy from Its Worst Enemies, a book on democracy, American history, and national security.

Signer has published articles, essays, and book reviews in the University of Richmond Law Review, Corporate Counsel, the Washington Post, the New Republic, and the Daily Beast, In 2006, he wrote an article on progressive American exceptionalism titled "City on a Hill," in the inaugural issue of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas. He teaches nonfiction writing at Politics and Prose, a bookstore in Washington, D.C.

Signer is the founder and managing principal of Madison Law & Strategy Group, PLLC, where since 2010 he has practiced corporate and regulatory law. His clients have included alternative investors, start-ups, political campaigns, and government contractors. He is co-Chair of the Business Law Section of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Bar Association. He also chaired the Pro Bono Committee of the Young Lawyers Conference of the Virginia State Bar.

After graduating from the University of Virginia School of Law, Signer joined the Corporate Department of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr. In 2005, Governor Mark Warner of Virginia appointed Signer as one of two counselors in his gubernatorial office in Richmond, where he advised the governor on issues including executive clemency, civil settlements, FOIA requests, and state contracting policies. He was asked to chair a special committee on the repercussions of DNA analysis in criminal files.

After Governor Warner’s term ended, Signer returned to the Public Policy and Strategy and Government Litigation groups at WilmerHale, where he counseled clients on matters including public policy strategy, regulatory approval, and federal investigations.

He is a long-time voting rights attorney. He has helped run many statewide voter protection programs in Virginia, including serving as statewide director for the 2004 program directed by the Democratic National Committee. In 2010, he traveled to Panjshir Province, Afghanistan, as a member of a U.S.AID-sponsored mission to monitor Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections. He also founded and co-chaired the New Electoral Reform Alliance for Virginia.

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