Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Page 3
President Nominates Local Attorney to Federal Trade Commission
By a MetNews Staff Writer
President Obama yesterday nominated Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges partner Edith Ramirez to the Federal Trade Commission.
The White House said Obama named Ramirez and Senior North Carolina Deputy Attorney General Julie Brill to fill two vacancies on the five-member commission charged with promoting consumer protection and eliminating “anti-competitive” business practices.
If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Ramirez and Brill, both Democrats, would respectively replace Republican Deborah Majoras, who stepped down in March 2008, and independent Pamela Jones Harbor, whose term ended in September.
Each would serve a seven-year term, but Brill’s term would commence as of September of this year while Ramirez’s term would be measured from September 2008.
Ramirez works in Quinn Emanuel’s Los Angeles office specializing in intellectual property and complex litigation matters. Her experience includes representation in copyright, trademark, antitrust, business tort and other general business litigation cases.
She is vice president of the Board of Commissioners of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and a member of the Board of Directors of Volunteers of America. Ramirez also worked as deputy political director and director of Latino outreach for Obama’s presidential campaign in California.
Admitted to the State Bar in 1993, Ramirez graduated from Harvard-Radcliffe College before attending Harvard Law School. She served as a law clerk to Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alfred T. Goodwin, and then as an associate at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher for three years before joining Quinn Emanual.
Brill is a resident of North Carolina and Vermont and was named to her current post—where she also serves as chief of consumer protection and antitrust for the North Carolina Department of Justice—by North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper in February.
She was an assistant attorney general for consumer protection and antitrust for the State of Vermont for over 20 years, and lectures at Columbia University’s School of Law. Brill has also been vice-chair of the Consumer Protection Committee of the American Bar Association Antitrust Section since 2004.
Brill attended Princeton University and graduated from New York University School of Law in 1985. She clerked for U.S. District Court Judge Franklin S. Billings Jr. of the District of Vermont for one year and then became an associate with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York before joining the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.
Copyright 2009, Metropolitan News Company