Barry Grissom (DOJ)

Although the Justice Department has a hiring freeze, Kansas U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom wants to add more Assistant U.S. Attorneys to his office, the Salina Journal reported Tuesday.

Speaking at a Salina Noon Rotary Club meeting on Monday, Grissom said four to five more prosecutors would help his office better combat white-collar criminal and child sexual exploitation cases.

But Attorney General Eric Holder put in place a hiring freeze in January. Holder said the hiring freeze will help the Justice Department cope with a budget crunch as it continues to operate under its fiscal 2010 budget. Congress has yet to agree on a permanent budget for fiscal 2011, which ends Sept. 30.

There are now 49 Assistant U.S. Attorneys working in branches of the Kansas U.S. Attorney’s Office located in Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita.

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.

Barry Grissom (Wilhelmina Models)

Look out, Scott Brown. You may soon have some competition for cutest public servant.

Barry Grissom, the nominee to head the Kansas U.S. Attorney’s office, worked as a freelance model from 1980 to 1986 while he was getting his law career off the ground.

“I was introduced to modeling in my second year of law school,” Grissom said in an interview with Main Justice.

Grissom said he used the modeling jobs to help him pay off his student loans — just like the freshman senator from Massachusetts, who worked part-time as a model in the 80s and won Cosmopolitan magazine’s “America’s Sexiest Man” contest in June 1982.

Grissom previously worked as a house painter, but eventually gravitated to modeling.

“I found [modeling] was much easier work than standing on a ladder painting houses in the Kansas heat,” he said.

After he graduated from Oklahoma City University School of Law in 1981, Grissom went to New York and became a model for Wilhelmina Models, one of the world’s top modeling agencies. Although Grissom never had trouble finding work in the modeling mecca, in 1983 he moved back to Kansas. There were fewer models in Kansas — and therefore less competition for jobs, he said.

Barry Grissom does his best "Blue Steel."

During his modeling career, Grissom posed for Macy’s ads and WalMart TV spots. However, he wasn’t willing to accept just any offer.

“I always wanted to be in law and knowing that … I drew the line at doing anything … scantily clad,” Grissom said. “My fear was standing in front of a jury [and] someone saying, ‘How do I know him?’”

While Grissom said he doesn’t think his modeling career helped launched his legal career, “it did give me a bit of notoriety and novelty.”

With a solid personal injury law practice and his nomination for U.S. Attorney pending, Grissom has no plans to return to modeling.

“My hair is totally white and I’ve put on 20 pounds … but my demographic is aging with me,” he said.

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

Barry R. Grissom (University of Kansas, Oklahoma City University School of Law) is nominated to be U.S. Attorney for Kansas. He would replace Eric Melgren, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2008. The district’s current interim U.S. Attorney is Lanny Welch.

His vitals:

• Born in Lebanon, Ky., in 1954.
• Earned an associate’s degree from Johnson County Community College in May 1974.
• Has been the solo practitioner at Grissom Law Office in Overland Park, Kansas, since 2007.
• Was the solo practitioner at the Law Office of Barry R. Grissom in Overland Park, Kansas, and Mission, Kansas, from 1983 to 2007.
• Clerked at Spradley, Wirken & Riesmeyer in Kansas City, Mo., in 1981.
• Interned in the Oklahoma attorney general’s office in the criminal appellate division in Oklahoma City, Okla., in 1980.
• Interned in the Oklahoma county public defenders office in Oklahoma City, Okla., from 1979 to 1980.
• Worked as a lift operator for Breckenridge Ski Corporation in Breckenridge, Colo., during the 1977 to 1978 ski season.
• Was an intake clerk at the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri in Kansas City, Mo., in 1977.
• Worked as a freelance model from 1980 to 1986.
• Was a sales associate at Venture Department Stores in Overland Park, Kan., from 1972 to 1974.
• Painted houses during the summers during college and after his first year of law school.
• Has handled approximately 683 cases, about 30 of which were tried to verdict or judgment. Served as sole or lead counsel in about 90 percent of the cases and associate counsel in the remainder.

Click here for his full Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire.

UPDATE: On his Senate Judiciary financial disclosure Grissom reported assets valued at $1.3 million, mostly from securities and real estate, and $331,500 in liabilities for a net worth of $971,700.

On his Office of Government Ethics disclosure Grissom reported his salary from his law firm to be $59,800 for 2009 and the first five months of 2010.

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

President Barack Obama tapped a sole practitioner to be the U.S. Attorney for Kansas, the White House announced Wednesday.

Barry R. Grissom, who has been in private practice since 1983, handles civil litigation, focusing on employment discrimination. He was a legal adviser to Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) during his first two congressional races. Moore recommended Grissom to Obama for the nomination. Read more about Grissom here.

He would succeed Eric Melgren, who stepped down as U.S. Attorney in 2008.

Obama has now made 68 U.S. Attorney nominations, 41 of whom have won Senate confirmation.

Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.)  has announced that former Justice Department official Paul Moore will become his new campaign manager in Moran’s campaign for the Senate, according to a Kansas television station. Moran is seeking to win the Republican nomination to succeed GOP Sen. Sam Brownback, who’s retiring to run for governor.

Moran is one of two Republicans, along with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), seeking the nomination to succeed Brownback, who is running for governor. Moran is ahead of Tiahrt both in the polls and in the money race, according to Topeka station WIBW. The nominee will face either retired communications executive Charles Schollenberger or attorney Stanley Wiles in the general election, but whoever wins the Republican nomination will be heavily favored in November.

Moore worked on the confirmation team of former Attorney General John Ashcroft before working at the Justice Department under Ashcroft, the station reports. He also has served on local, state, and, national campaigns across the Midwest.

A crippling blizzard pounding the East Coast has forced nearly a dozen U.S. Attorney’s offices to close and has curtailed Justice Department operations in Washington today, according to DOJ officials.

A weekend snowstorm shut down the Justice Department on Monday. (photo by Ryan J. Reilly).

Many DOJ employees who work at DOJ headquarters in Washington and at U.S. Attorney’s offices stretching from Virginia to Rhode Island are working from home on BlackBerries, cell phone and laptops, the officials said.

The Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, the DOJ’s main building, is open for essential personnel who are able to make it through the heavy snow and 40 mile per hour winds. There are about 25,300 people who work for DOJ agencies in the Washington area, according to CNN.

Several U.S. Attorney’s offices and DOJ headquarters have been closed or have had limited operations since Monday because of a storm that brought more than a foot of snow to most of the East Coast last weekend, according to reports here and here.

Today’s storm hit while authorities were still struggling to clean up from the last one.

The U.S. Attorney’s offices that are closed today are in:

• Maryland. The office was also closed on Monday.

• The District of Columbia. The office has been closed since Monday.

• The Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria office). The office has been closed since Monday.

• The Western District of Virginia (Charlottesville and Harrisonburg offices).

• The Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

• The Middle District of Pennsylvania.

• The Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh and Johnstown offices).

• The Eastern District of New York.

• New Jersey.

• Rhode Island.

• Delaware.

U.S. Attorney’s offices in the Eastern District of Arkansas, Western District of Arkansas, Northern District of Oklahoma, Western District of Tennessee and Kansas were shuttered on Monday because of the weather, according to CNN. The Eastern District of Arkansas U.S. Attorney’s Office was also closed on Tuesday, CNN said.

DOJ spokesperson Gina Talamona told Main Justice that DOJ public safety and national security functions are “operational.” She added that the DOJ has made special arrangements for its legal division attorneys to work during the storms and keep up with court deadlines.

This report has been corrected from an earlier version.

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

Rep. Dennis Moore (D-Kan.) has recommended Overland Park, Kan., attorney Barry Grissom to be the state’s next top federal prosecutor, The Kansas City Star reports. Grissom, who has a private law practice specializing in civil litigation with a focus on employment discrimination, was a legal adviser to Moore during his first two congressional races, the newspaper reports. Grissom told The Star, “It’d be an honor to have a job like this,” adding, “It’d be an opportunity to serve and serving under this administration would be a double honor.”

Dan Watkins, an attorney in Lawrence, Kan., had applied for the position, according to The Star, but withdrew from consideration last month. The last Senate-confirmed U.S. Attorney in the state was Eric F. Melgren. He served from 2002 to 2008, when he resigned to become a federal judge in Kansas. Since Melgren’s departure, Lanny D. Welch has been in charge of the office, serving as interim U.S. Attorney.

Dan Watkins, a real estate attorney who was an adviser to President Obama’s presidential campaign in Kansas, said he is no longer interested in becoming Kansas’ U.S. Attorney, The Associated Press reported.  Watkins previously declined to endorse reports that he had been recommended to become the district’s next top prosecutor.

Watkins told The AP that the more he considered the position the more he wanted to stay in his current job. “I think it fits best for me to keep doing what I’m doing,” Watkins told The Lawrence Journal-World. He added, “I like what I’m doing.”