Damien Eastman

Damien Eastman is the Deputy General Counsel in the Office of the General Counsel at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Mr. Eastman joined ADB in 2014 as Assistant General Counsel for Institutional and Administrative Affairs, providing legal advice and support on a wide variety of institutional, operational and administrative matters, including advice on ADB’s institutional governance and its legal framework; ADB’s privileges and immunities, external litigation and arbitration; government relations; and staff grievances, disciplinary procedures, HR policies, and staff rules and regulations. 

Prior to joining ADB, Mr. Eastman spent over 10 years in the Legal Department at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington, DC, where he advised on the Fund’s legal relations with its member countries and other international organizations and was responsible for the oversight of the Legal Department’s internal governance advisory group. He was the Fund’s lawyer for a number of European crisis programs, various debt relief operations for IMF member countries in the African and Asian regions and was involved in developing the Fund’s policies in the area of sovereign debt restructuring. 

Before the IMF, Mr. Eastman practiced law with Allens-Linklaters in Sydney, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in London. An Australian national, Mr. Eastman holds a Master of Laws (LL.M) from Harvard Law School, and degrees in Arts (BA) and Law (LL.B, 1st Class Honors) from the University of Sydney and the University of Technology, Sydney. He is admitted to practice law in Australia and the United Kingdom.