Brad Middleton serves as Managing Director of Federal Affairs and Government Relations for the firm’s Higher Education Practice. He draws on 18 years of federal government service to provide clients with strategic guidance on government relations and appropriations requests.
Prior to joining McAllister & Quinn, Brad held senior positions at the United States Department of Education and United States Senate. He served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of Education during the Biden Administration. In that role, Brad provided guidance on institutional accountability policies and coordinated complex Title IV participation and oversight cases with other Department stakeholders and institutions. Prior to that, Brad served as Senior Advisor for Strategy in the Department’s Federal Student Aid Office of Enforcement where he advised the Department’s Chief Enforcement Officer on issues related to Title IV compliance and enforcement.
Brad also served 15 years in the Office of United States Senator Richard J. Durbin (D-IL) where he held a variety of positions in both DC and Illinois. Brad managed the Senator’s Rock Island Office and served nearly 10 years as Education Policy Director. In that role, Brad led a team of four with responsibility for developing and advancing the Senator’s education policy agenda and appropriations priorities. During this time, Brad managed legislative strategy, built bipartisan coalitions to advance key policy priorities, and played a pivotal role in the creation of a grant program, which has received $61 million in appropriations to date, to promote the use of open postsecondary educational resources.
A native of Rock Falls, Illinois, Brad earned a Bachelor of Arts from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois. He currently resides in Washington, D.C., with his wife Claire.