Metropolitan News-Enterprise

 

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

 

Page 3

 

Senate Confirms Openly Gay Attorney as Ambassador

 

By a MetNews Staff Writer

 

The U.S. Senate has confirmed President Obama’s appointment of openly gay California attorney David Huebner as the U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa.

The Senate voted by voice vote Friday to confirm Huebner, making him the third openly gay ambassador in U.S. history and the first picked by this administration.

The nomination was approved subject to Huebner’s commitment to respond to requests to appear and testify before any duly constituted committee of the Senate.

Huebner is currently a partner resident in Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton’s Shanghai office and the firm’s chief representative in China. He heads the firm’s China and International Disputes practices, where he specializes in international arbitration, mediation and cross-border litigation, and advises on corporate compliance and governance issues.

Admitted to the State Bar of California in 1989, he was a long-time partner at Coudert Brothers, where he served as chairman and chief executive officer before joining Sheppard Mullin, where he worked in the Los Angeles office, in 2005. He also previously served in Tokyo as executive assistant to former Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Koji Kakizawa, who died in January, while Kakizawa was a member of the lower house of the Japanese Diet.

While a resident of California, Huebner chaired the California Law Revision Commission, served as president of the Los Angeles Quality & Productivity Commission, and taught courses in international business and intellectual property at USC’s Gould School of Law.

He has guest-lectured on international topics at several schools in the United States and abroad, and is also licensed as an attorney in New York and the District of Columbia, and as a solicitor in England & Wales. A native of Pennsylvania, Huebner attended Princeton University and Yale Law School.

Huebner has been active in non-profit groups, community organizations and professional associations such as the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, the International Chamber of Commerce Commission on Arbitration, the Los Angeles Committee on Foreign Relations and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. He previously served as GLAAD’s general counsel and on its board.

 

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