The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed San Francisco attorney Melinda Haag as the new U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California on Thursday.
The decision came without debate shortly after the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved Haag’s nomination for the position Thursday morning.
Sen. Barbara Boxer said in a prepared statement Thursday that she recommended Haag’s nomination to the White House after “a thorough interview and vetting process by a bipartisan committee.”
“I am so pleased that the Senate unanimously confirmed Melinda Haag to become the top federal prosecutor in San Francisco,” Boxer said in the statement. “She has more than two decades of experience handling white collar crime cases, which will be a tremendous asset to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Since 2003, Haag has been a partner at international San Francisco law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, where she is involved in the White Collar Criminal Defense and Corporate Investigations Group.
That team handles cases involving fraud, antitrust violations, environmental crimes, health care fraud and other corporate matters.
The University of California, San Diego graduate received her law degree from University of California at Berkeley before working in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles from 1989 to 1993. She then transferred to the San Francisco office, where she worked until 2003 when she joined Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe.
Haag will succeed current U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello. It will be the first time a woman has represented the Northern District of California for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 90 years. Annette Adams was the last woman to hold the position, from 1918 to 1920.
The Northern District of California stretches as far south as the Monterey Coast and extends north to California’s border with Oregon. It stretches east from the Pacific Ocean nearly to Sacramento. More than 7.3 million people live in the district.
