Today, President Obama nominated Sri Srinivasan to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia: President Obama Nominates Two to Serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.Srikanth 'Sri' Srinivasan currently serves as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States, the second highest position at the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Solicitor General.
Mr. Srinivasan is the first South Asian American to ever be nominated to the circuit court. If confirmed, he will be just the third South Asian named to any federal judgeship. Here's more on his background:
Mr. Srinivasan began his legal career by serving as a law clerk for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1995 to 1996. He then spent a year as a Bristow Fellow in the Office of the Solicitor General before clerking for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor during the Supreme Court’s 1997-98 term. He was an associate at the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP in Washington, D.C., from 1998 until 2002. In 2002, he returned to the Solicitor General’s Office as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, representing the United States in litigation before the Supreme Court. For his work, he received the Attorney General’s Award for Excellence in Furthering U.S. National Security in 2003 and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence in 2005. In 2007, Mr. Srinivasan became a partner with O’Melveny & Myers LLP. In 2011, he was named the Chair of the firm’s Appellate Practice Group. He was named as the Principal Deputy Solicitor General in August 2011.Another historic judicial nomination from President Obama. For more information on Sri Srinivasan, view the White House's press release here.
Mr. Srinivasan is widely recognized as one of the country’s leading appellate and Supreme Court advocates. He has argued before the Supreme Court twenty times, drafted briefs in several dozen additional cases, and has also served as lead counsel in numerous cases before the federal and state appellate courts. He has also served as a lecturer at Harvard Law School, where he taught a class on appellate advocacy.