Michael A. Hess

Michael Anthony Hess (born Anthony Lee; 5 July 1952 – 15 August 1995) was an Irish-born American lawyer, deputy chief legal counsel and later chief legal counsel to the Republican National Committee (RNC) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

He was born Anthony Lee to Philomena Lee in Ireland, and spent his first years of life in a convent before being adopted by Marge and Doc Hess of St. Louis, Missouri. The issues surrounding his adoption are controversial, as part of a program of forced adoptions practised by some Catholic religious orders in Ireland at the time, and the story of that early part of his life was later told in British journalist Martin Sixsmith's book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee and in the film Philomena.