In an NPR story surveying possible candidates for top positions in the next administration’s Justice Department, there’s this: “California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger is a possible U.S. solicitor general — perhaps as part of a career track that could be her route to the Supreme Court as the Black woman nominee Biden has promised.”
This isn’t the first time Justice Kruger has been mentioned for the Solicitor General’s job. See Bloomberg Law’s “Biden’s Top SCOTUS Lawyer Should Be Woman, Court Watchers Say.”
The Solicitor General’s office supervises and conducts government litigation in the United States Supreme Court. The office is familiar to Justice Kruger.
When she was appointed to the state Supreme Court, Justice Kruger was a Deputy Assistant U.S. Attorney General, but, before that, she served six years as an Assistant to the Solicitor General and as Acting Principal Deputy Solicitor General. She argued 12 cases in the United States Supreme Court.
After then-Governor Brown appointed Kruger, former U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement was quoted as saying she is an “outstanding lawyer” and “even better colleague” who “combines an understated and easygoing manner with a keen legal mind and unquestioned integrity,” and former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal called her “as good a lawyer with whom I have ever worked in my life.” (See here.)
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Biden’s promise raises Justice Kruger’s profile as a potential SCOTUS nominee