The Office of White House Counsel has taken on another new hire, adding another to the flood of relatively new personnel under the leadership of former Justice Department official Kathryn Ruemmler, the Blog of Legal Times reported.
Leslie Kiernan will start on Monday as a deputy counsel to President Barack Obama. Kiernan, a long-time partner at Zuckerman Spaeder LLP, has spent most of her career in private practice, focusing on white-collar defense and congressional investigations that included representing Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) during a House ethics probe.
She is expected to focus on ethics compliance and vetting presidential appointees, according to the Legal Times.
Kiernan’s introduction marks the latest in a series of relatively recent hires, including deputy counsels Kimberley Harris and Avril Haines. Also recently hired as senior counsel are Steven Croley, from the White House’s Domestic Policy Office, and Chris Kang, from Obama’s legislative affairs staff.
Ruemmler, a former Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General, took over the office after former White House Counsel Robert Bauer announced in June he would return to Perkins Coie LLP to advise Obama’s reelection campaign. She worked as a prosecutor at the department for almost 10 years before making the jump to White House Counsel.
