Marc L. Kesselman was sworn in as USDA´s General Counsel by Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns on June 1, 2006. As General Counsel, Mr. Kesselman advises the Secretary and directs all legal activity for the Department, including litigation, counseling and regulatory development.
Before joining USDA, Mr. Kesselman served as Deputy General Counsel at the Office of Management and Budget. There he handled a wide range of regulatory and budgetary matters, mediated interagency disputes, addressed significant matters on the Justice Department ´s civil litigation docket, formulated Presidential Executive Orders, and developed and implemented legal policy initiatives. Mr. Kesselman worked extensively with numerous federal departments and agencies, focusing on the Departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, State and Treasury; as well as with the various White House offices.
Prior to his service at OMB, Mr. Kesselman served as Senior Counsel in the Office of Legal Policy at the United States Department of Justice. He has also worked as a trial attorney in Justice ´s Federal Programs Branch, representing the United States against constitutional challenges to federal statutes and attacks on the legality of government policies and programs. There, the Attorney General presented Mr. Kesselman with the John Marshall Award, the Department of Justice ´s highest award for trial of litigation.
Previously, Mr. Kesselman worked as an attorney at the Washington, DC law firm of Ropes & Gray, focusing on litigation, employment law, intellectual property, and white collar defense. He was a law clerk for the Honorable Julia S. Gibbons, then the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. A native of Memphis, Mr. Kesselman graduated with high honors from Cornell University, and with honors from the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Mr. Kesselman and his wife, Risa, reside in Bethesda, Maryland with their two children.
Mr. Kesselman succeeds Nancy S. Bryson. Ms. Bryson is now a partner at the Washington, DC office of the Venable law firm, where she heads its food and agriculture law practice.
