Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is a first-year lawmaker in the minority party, but he's quickly learning a senatorial tradition: seeing his chief counsel get a top job in the U.S. Justice Department.
Lee's general counsel and chief counsel for judiciary issues, David Barlow, is getting nominated as the next U.S. attorney for Utah, according to a White House news release late today. Barlow has been with Lee since the senator was sworn in, in January. He was previously a partner and associate at Sidley Austin, beginning in 2000. (Lee worked at Sidley early in his career and later became a partner at Howrey before running for Senate.)
According to court records, Barlow worked out of Sidley’s Chicago office. He represented AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in product-liability litigation and General Electric Co. in asbestos litigation. He got his bachelor’s from Brigham Young University in 1995 and his law degree from Yale Law School in 1998, according to his White House biography.
“I am pleased to nominate David Barlow to serve the people of Utah as a United States attorney,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.
In a separate statement, Lee called Barlow a “first-rate lawyer” whose willingness to leave Sidley’s partnership for public service “speaks volumes about his character.”
The Salt Lake Tribune has more reaction here.
There’s a long list of former Senate lawyers who have moved to the Justice Department. Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was previously chief counsel to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Last year, Michael Zubrensky, a lawyer for Sen. Richard Dubin (D-Ill.), left to work in DOJ’s Office of Legal Policy.
Also today, Obama nominated a judge with Washington ties for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. Judge Adalberto José Jordán is a former clerk to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who has served on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida since 1999.
Updated at 7:12 p.m. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi.
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