President Barack Obama nominated former Justice Department official J. Paul Oetken for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the White House announced on Wednesday.
Currently a senior vice president and associate general counsel of Cablevision Systems Corporation, Oetken previously worked as an associate at the Debevoise & Plimpton and Jenner & Block law firms.
Oetken served in the White House Counsel’s Office as Associate Counsel to the President, and from 1997 to 1999 he was an attorney-advisor with DOJ in the Office of Legal Counsel.
He served as a law clerk for Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun and for Judges Louis F. Oberdorfer of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Richard D. Cudahy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.
Oetken received his J.D. from Yale Law School and his undergraduate degree from the University of Iowa. His is the third nomination of an openly gay official in the Obama administration.
