Washington:
US President Barack Obama has appointed eminent Indian American lawyer Preeta D Bansal as Vice-Chair of the Council of the Administrative Conference.
Bansal is currently the General Counsel and Senior Policy Adviser for the Office of Management and Budget.
Her appointment comes along with several others to the Council of the Administrative Conference of the United States (ACUS).
ACUS, a public-private partnership, is designed to make government work better, and the members of the Council are committed individuals from distinguished backgrounds who are devoted to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and transparency of the government, Obama said.
"I am pleased that these outstanding individuals will lend their talents to ACUS's vital mission of providing nonpartisan, practical assessments and recommendations to improve agency procedures and operations," the US President said in a statement.
Prior to joining the Obama Administration, Bansal was a Partner and Head of the Appellate Litigation Practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP in New York City.
She also served as the Solicitor General of the State of New York from 1999-2001, where she helped supervise 600 attorneys in the New York Attorney General's office.
While in private practice from 2003-2009, Bansal served as a Commissioner of the bipartisan United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving as Chair in 2004-2005.
Raised in Lincoln, Nebraska, Bansal was a Visiting Professor of constitutional law and federalism at the University of Nebraska College of Law in 2002-2003.
Earlier in her career, Bansal was a law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens of the US Supreme Court, counsellor in the US Department of Justice, and a Special Counsel in the Office of the White House Counsel.