Academic

Thomas Saenz To Head DOJ Civil Rights Division?

By Dan Filler

Thomas Saenz, formerly an attorney with MALDEF and currently legal counsel to LA Mayor AntonioVillaraigosa, will be named to head the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.   Like any good political gossip, this is according to unnamed sources who've been chatting with the L.A. Daily Journal.  I assume this is more than just a continuation of an old rumor: the Legal Times reported the same thing on January 16. 

Some insiders are more inside than the rest of us: Yale Law School has been boasting about this appointment, as if it were a fait accompli, for a week now.

Based on these sources, here is his bio:

He grew up in Southern California and attended Alhambra High School.  He  graduated summa cum laude from Yale University and received his law degree from Yale Law School, where he won the Potter Stewart Prize for moot court. He then served as law clerk for the Honorable Harry L.Hupp of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California and to the Honorable Stephen Reinhardt of the U.S.Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.   He joined the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund as a staff attorney in 1993; he became Los Angeles Regional Counsel in 1996, National Senior Counsel in 2000, and Vice President of Litigation in 2001.   He taught Civil Rights Litigation as an adjunct professor at USC, for several years, and was a Resident Practitioner at Berkeley Law School (aka Boalt) in 2005.  He became counsel to the L.A. Mayor in August 2005.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on February 24, 2009 (boomark / email).