King & Spalding announced on Monday that former Assistant U.S. Attorney Ross W. Nadel will become a partner in the firm’s special matters and government investigations practice. His work will focus on securities fraud, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, off-label promotion and health care fraud and criminal antitrust and cartel matters.

Nadel, who worked in the U.S. Attorney’s offices in the Northern and Eastern Districts of California from 1981 to 2005, will split his time between the firm’s offices in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. While working in the U.S. Attorney’s offices, Nadel served as chief of the criminal division, chief of the San Jose Branch office and chief of the economics crimes unit.

From 2008 to 2009 he worked as senior legal counsel for worldwide anti-piracy at Adobe Systems Incorporated. Nadel also worked as a partner at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP from 2006 to 2008.

Christopher A. Wray, chair of King & Spalding’s special matters and government investigations practice said, “With more than 25 years’ experience of distinguished service at the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern and Eastern Districts of California, plus additional work in private and corporate practice, Ross has a reputation as one of the most respected government investigation practitioners in the Bay Area.” He added, “We are excited Ross is joining our team. The knowledge, experience and skill he brings with him will anchor and significantly expand our government investigations and white-collar criminal defense footprint onto the West Coast.”

Melinda Haag (Orrick)

The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed three U.S. Attorney nominees by voice vote at its meeting Thursday.

They are:

- Melinda Haag (Northern District of California): The partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe would replace George W. Bush U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello. President Barack Obama nominated her on March 25. Read more about her here.

Barry R. Grissom (Law Office of Barry R. Grissom)

- Barry R. Grissom (Kansas): The Overland Park, Kan., lawyer would succeed Eric Melgren, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2008. Obama tapped him on April 28. Read more about him here.

David Hickton (Burns, White and Hickton)

– David J. Hickton (Western District of Pennsylvania): The founding member of Burns, White & Hickton LLC would succeed Mary Beth Buchanan, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in November 2009 to run for the House. But she didn’t win the Republican nomination in the race for the Western Pennsylvania seat held by Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire. Obama nominated Hickton on May 20. Read more about him here.

The committee has now approved 66 of Obama’s U.S. Attorney nominees, 57 of whom have won Senate confirmation. The panel has yet to schedule votes for another eight would-be U.S. Attorneys. There are 93 U.S. Attorney posts.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to consider three U.S. Attorney nominees at its meeting Thursday.

They are:

Melinda Haag (Orrick)

- Melinda Haag (Northern District of California): The partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe would replace George W. Bush U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello. President Barack Obama nominated her on March 25. Read more about her here.

Barry R. Grissom (Law Office of Barry R. Grissom)

- Barry R. Grissom (Kansas): The Overland Park, Kan., lawyer would succeed Eric Melgren, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2008. Obama tapped him on April 28. Read more about him here.

– David J. Hickton (Western District of Pennsylvania): The founding member of Burns, White & Hickton LLC would succeed Mary Beth Buchanan, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in November 2009 to stage an unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire. Obama nominated Hickton on May 20. Read more about him here.

Attorney David Hickton (Burns, White and Hickton)

The panel has yet to schedule votes for another eight would-be U.S. Attorneys. The committee has approved 63 of Obama’s U.S. Attorney nominees, 57 of whom have won Senate confirmation. There are 93 U.S. Attorney posts.

Melinda Haag (Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP)

Melinda L. Haag (University of California at San Diego, University of California at Berkeley School of Law) is nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California. She would replace Bush holdover Joseph Russoniello, who has headed the office since 2008.

Her vitals:

• Born in San Diego, Calif., in 1961.
• Attended but did not receive a degree from California State University, Hayward (now California State University, East Bay).
• Has been a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP in San Francisco since October 2003.
• Worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Francisco from February 1999 to July 2003.
• Was a partner at the now defunct Landels, Ripley & Diamond LLP in San Francisco from September 1993 to January 1999.
• Worked as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Central District of California from June 1989 to September 1993.
• Was an associate at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in Los Angeles from October 1987 to June 1989.
• Worked as a law clerk at Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP in San Francisco from January 1987 to June 1987.
• Was a legal research and writing instructor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law from September 1986 to December 1986.
• Worked as a summer associate at Patton Boggs LLP in Washington, D.C., from June 1986 to August 1986.
• Was a summer associate at Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP in Los Angeles from June 1985 to August 1985.
• Has tried approximately 19 trials, nine as sole counsel and 10 as lead counsel.

Click here for her full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

UPDATE: On her Office of Government Ethics questionably, Haag reported partnership draws/distribution from Orrick of $1.06 million.

On her Senate Judiciary financial disclosure Haag reported assets valued at $7.8 million, mostly from securities and her personal residence, and $103,800 in liabilities for a net worth of $7.7 million.

President Barack Obama nominated two lawyers in private practice and an Assistant U.S. Attorney to serve as U.S. Attorneys, the White House announced Thursday.

They are:

Melinda Haag (Orrick)

– Melinda Haag (Northern District of California): The partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe would replace George W. Bush holdover U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello. Read more about her here.

Jerry Martin (Barrett, Johnston & Parsley)

– Jerry Martin (Middle District of Tennessee): The partner at Barrett, Johnston & Parsley would replace Bush holdover U.S. Attorney Ed Yarbrough. Read more about Martin here.

- James A. Lewis (Central District of Illinois): The Central District of Illinois Assistant U.S. Attorney would succeed Rodger A. Heaton, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney last August. The district’s current acting U.S. Attorney is Jeffrey B. Lang. Read more about Lewis here.

Obama has now made 60 U.S. Attorney nominations, 36 of whom have already won Senate confirmation. There are 93 Attorneys, who lead 94 offices across the country.

Joseph Russoniello (DOJ)

U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello’s tough immigration stance has hampered San Francisco from changing its sanctuary law. Now some hope Russoniello, a Bush-holdover as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, will be replaced soon and that his successor might have a different take on the sanctuary law, SF Weekly reported Tuesday.

San Francisco city supervisor David Campos has proposed an amendment to the city’s sanctuary law that would prohibit undocumented youths accused of felonies from being reported to federal immigration authorities unless and until they are convicted. However, Mayor Gavin Newsom and Juvenile Probation chief William Siffermann say that without Russoniello on board, they cannot offer more protections to undocumented juvenile suspects.

Immigrant advocates might not have to wait much longer as President Barack Obama is “closer than ever” to nominating Russoniello’s replacement, according to the paper.

Melinda Haag (Orrick)

In February, the FBI began a background check on Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP partner Melinda Haag, signaling her likely nomination.

Russoniello’s immigration stance dates back to the 1980’s when he first became a U.S. Attorney during the Reagan administration. Soon after his appointment to the post, Russoniello launched a controversial investigation into whether non-citizens were being registered to vote. He also has said his office could prosecute church members for giving sanctuary to illegal immigrants, and in a 1989 letter to then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein, he wrote that the sanctuary law was “invalid,” “calculated to confuse” and “may well subject those who implement it to possible federal criminal prosecution.”

While Russoniello is known to take a hard-line on immigration issues, Haag’s position on enforcement is unknown. But some immigration advocates told SF Weekly that anyone other than Russoniello would be an improvement in their view.

“Joe Russoniello is, hands down, the biggest obstacle to even modest due process modifications for juvenile offenders,” one person at City Hall told SF Weekly. “You can’t take threats of federal criminal prosecution lightly, and that’s especially true of a U.S. Attorney who’s been as aggressive on immigration as Russoniello has.”

A former FBI agent from the Central District of California charged with unlawfully using his authority to obtain information has resigned, The Orange County Register reported.

Peter H. Norell Jr. faces a misdemeanor charge stemming from a 2005 incident in which he allegedly used a computer to retrieve information he was not authorized to obtain. He pleaded not guilty on Monday. Several FBI agents were at the courtroom Monday to support Norell, who formerly led the FBI’s white-collar crime unit in Santa Ana, Calif., according to the newspaper.

“It’s a sad, sad day,” Thomas S. McConville, Norell’s lawyer, said. “We’ll let this case see its way through the justice system.”

McConville declined to further elaborate on his client’s case. Northern District of California Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Finigan, who is prosecuting the case, also declined to comment to The OC Register.

Further details on the case are scarce as prosecutors have filed only a few short court documents. (The court records can be found here, here and here.)

Norell faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine. Although he pleaded not guilty, Norell will likely change his plea to guilty at another court hearing, according to the newspaper.

This story was corrected to reflect that Norell pleaded not guilty. The original version said he had pleaded guilty.

The search for the Southern District of California’s next top federal prosecutor is close to wrapping up, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported today.

The screening panel established by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) stopped accepting applications earlier this summer, according to the newspaper. Boxer will advise President Obama on who he should nominate, but it is unknown if she has made recommendations yet, the Union-Tribune reported.

Here are the finalists for the post, lawyers familiar with the screening committee told the newspaper:

Jerry Coughlan (Coughlan, Semmer & Lipman)

-Timothy Coughlin (Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California)

-Laura Duffy (Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California)

-Kevin Kelly (First Assistant U.S. Attorney, Southern District of California)

-Jerry Coughlan (Partner at San Diego law firm Coughlan, Semmer & Lipman)

Acting U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt currently leads the Southern District office. She was appointed by the district’s judges after Carol Lam was fired during the 2006 U.S. Attorney purge.

Boxer must also make U.S. Attorney recommendations for the Northern District of California. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is in charge of recommending candidates for the Central and Eastern districts.

Obama nominated Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner to be the top federal prosecutor in the Eastern District. Read about possible candidates for the California posts in our U.S. Attorney’s chart.

A Justice Department-led task force is planning to propose creating an inter-agency unit to handle interrogations of “high-value detainees,” The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The unit would be tasked more with intelligence-gathering than building criminal cases and its members would be pulled from spy and law-enforcement agencies, according to The Journal. The unit would also review how interrogations are handled.

“One of the team’s tasks would likely be to devise a new set of interrogation methods, according to one person familiar with the proposal. Those techniques could be drawn from sources ranging from scientific studies to the psychology behind television ads.”

The interrogation policy task force — along with a similar task force reviewing detention policy and the shutting down of the facility at Guantanamo Bay — will miss a Tuesday deadline for reporting findings, news reports said. But at least some of the interrogation policy group’s findings will be sent to the White House by that date, the AP reported.

The Special Task Force on Interrogation and Transfer Policies is being led by J. Douglas Wilson, the Chief of the National Security Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. He was appointed to the role by Attorney General Eric Holder in March. The task force was established under an executive order signed by President Barack Obama during his first week in office.

Generally, the creation of such a multi-agency team is supported within the administration, according to The Journal, but there is some disagreement over the details, such as which agency it should fall under or who should head it.

The Justice Department asked today for the full Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider a decision a three-judge panel made in April that would force the Obama administration to turn over information that President Bush tried to protect using the state secrets privilege.

DOJ prosecutors unsuccessfully argued that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should dismiss the Mohamed v. Jeppesen civil suit in April, invoking the state secrets privilege. The American Civil Liberties filed the suit in 2007 against Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company on behalf of Binyam Mohamed and four other men who were allegedly transported by the company to secret prisons where they were tortured.

The Justice Department said it made its decision to fight the court’s April ruling after a review by the “highest levels of the Department of Justice.”

“Based on that review, it is the government’s position that permitting this suit to proceed would pose an unacceptable risk to national security, and that the reasoning employed by the panel would dramatically restructure government operations by permitting any district judge to override the Executive Branch’s judgments in this highly sensitive realm,” wrote Acting Assistant Attorney General for the DOJ Civil Division Michael F. Hertz and Northern District of California U.S. Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello in a brief filed today.

President Obama has said he supported a more limited use of the state secrets privilege, but has invoked it three times.

“The Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration’s shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal consequences for their actions,” said the plaintiffs’ attorney Ben Wizner in a statement. “The CIA’s rendition and torture program is not a ’state secret;’ it’s an international scandal. If the Obama administration has its way, no torture victim will ever have his day in court, and future administrations will be free to pursue torture policies without any fear of liability.”