Ralph Oman

Biography

Dechert

Mr. Oman is Counsel with Dechert's (formerly Dechert Price & Rhoads and Titmuss Sainer Dechert) Washington D.C. office. Prior to entering private practice, Mr. Oman was the chief government official charged with administering the national copyright law as Register of Copyrights of the United State of America. He served in this capacity from 1985 to 1993 and is credited with helping move the U.S. into the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, the oldest and most prestigious international copyright convention.

His other government positions include Chief Counsel, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks, (1983-85); Staff Director, then Chief Counsel for the Subcommittee on Criminal Law, Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate (1981-83). He also served as Counsel to Senator Charles McMathias (Maryland) and Hugh Scott (Pennsylvania), and as an attorney for the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (1974-75). As chief minority counsel to the Senate Subcommittee on Patents, Trademarks and Copyright in 1975-76, he helped negotiate the final drafts and compromises that resulted in the landmark Copyright Act of 1976.

Mr. Oman is a member of the Federal and American Bar Associations and is past president of the Capitol Hill Chapter of the Federal Bar Association. He also is former chair of the International Copyright Committee of the American Bar Association.

Ralph Oman hails from Huntington, New York. He attended the Sorbonne in Paris and received his A.B. in 1962 from Hamilton College. His Juris Doctor degree is from Georgetown University (1973), where he served as executive editor of Law and Policy in International Business. He also served as law clerk to the Honorable C. Stanley Blair on the U. S. District Court for the District of Maryland in 1973-74.