Catherine L. Eschbach was sworn in as Principal Deputy General Counsel for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in September 2025 and currently serves as the Acting General Counsel. Eschbach joined the EEOC following her tenure as director of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP), part of the U.S. Department of Labor, where she oversaw its transition to its new scope of mission. While at the Department of Labor, she contributed to inter-agency efforts to eliminate DEI-related race and sex discrimination and restore a focus on merit and equal opportunity throughout the government, the federal contractor community, and the private sector more broadly.

Prior to her time leading the OFCCP, Eschbach practiced appellate law at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, focusing on complex constitutional, statutory, and administrative law issues. Earlier in her career, Eschbach served as a judicial law clerk for now-Chief Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and Judge David Hittner of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. She earned her law degree from the Pepperdine University School of Law and a Bachelor of Science from Vanderbilt University.