Personality Spotlight: David Ogden

WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- David William Ogden would return to the U.S. Justice Department if approved as President-elect Barack Obama's deputy attorney general.

The No. 2 position oversees daily operations.

Ogden was a Justice Department official during former President Bill Clinton's administration. He also led the Obama transition team at the Justice Department since the election.

Ogden is the son of Elaine and Horace G. Ogden, the first director of the Bureau of Health Education at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and who worked for the former U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Wikipedia reported.

Ogden earned a bachelor's degree summa cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976 and a law degree magna cum laude in 1981 from Harvard Law School, where he also edited the law review.

After clerking for U.S. District Judge Abraham David Sofaer in 1981-1982, Ogden clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Harry Blackmun in 1982-1983.

From 1994-1995, Ogden was deputy general counsel and the legal counsel for the U.S. Defense Department. From 1995-1997, he was an associate deputy attorney general in the U.S. Justice Department, the online encyclopedia said. From 1997-1998, Ogden was counselor to the U.S. attorney general, was chief of staff in the AG's office for two years after that. He was acting assistant attorney general from 1999 to 2000, when he took over as assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil division for a year.

Since 2001, Ogden has been a partner at the Washington, D.C., law firm Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, co-running the firm's government and regulatory litigation practice group.

Ogden and his wife, Anne Harkavy, live in Arlington, Va.