Donald Verrilli Jr., a deputy counsel to President Barack Obama, was chosen Monday to be the next U.S. solicitor general.
Obama announced his intention to nominate Verrilli. If confirmed by the Senate, Verrilli would succeed Justice Elena Kagan as the lawyer representing the executive branch of government before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As a private attorney, Verrilli has argued 12 cases before the justices and has participated in more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court.
Verrilli began serving in the Obama administration at the Justice Department where he worked on national security policy and domestic issues before moving to the White House.
Verrilli was in private practice for more than two decades in the Washington, D.C., office of the Jenner & Block law firm, focusing on First Amendment, telecommunications and intellectual property law.
Arguing on behalf of the music industry in 2005, Verrilli won a Supreme Court ruling in MGM Studios v. Grokster which opened online file-sharing companies to potential liability. The justices ruled that if the online file-sharing companies were found to intentionally induce or encourage the theft of copyrighted works, they could be held liable.
At the Justice Department before taking the White House post a year ago, Verrilli fashioned new restrictions on invoking the state secrets privilege, which allows the federal government to block lawsuits that would inevitably disclose national security secrets.