Department of Justice
Council Member: Eric Holder, Attorney General
Council Designee: Margaret L. Richardson, Counselor to Attorney General, Executive Branch Relations, U.S. Department of Justice
Margaret L. Richardson serves as Counselor to Attorney General for Executive Branch Relations. Until autumn 2007, she directed the Clean Slate Practice at the East Bay Community Law Center, U.C. Berkeley Law School’s Community Clinic. In this capacity she supervised law students and volunteer attorney in the delivery of free legal services to low income residents of Alameda County, California. She served as the director of Women for Obama in several states during the 2008 primaries. Ms. Richardson joined the Department of Justice on January 20, 2009.
Ms. Richardson holds a B.A. in History from University of Virginia, M.P.A. from the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University and a J.D. from U.C. Berkeley Law School.
Council Designee: Jocelyn Samuels, Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Justice
Jocelyn Samuels is a Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Justice. In that capacity, she oversees the work of the Employment Litigation and Educational Opportunities Sections of the Civil Rights Division and spearheads interagency policy projects related to combating discrimination and promoting equality of opportunity in education and employment.
Prior to her tenure at the Department of Justice. Ms. Samuels was the Vice President for Education and Employment at the National Women’s Law Center in Washington, D.C., where she oversaw an active litigation docket and engaged in legislative and policy advocacy to promote enforcement of Title VII and Title IX. Her prior experience also includes work as a Labor Counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy, then Ranking Member and subsequently Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and as a senior policy attorney at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ms. Samuels has additional experience in the private sector and as a law clerk to a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Ms. Samuels received her law degree from Columbia University, where she was a Notes Editor of the Law Review, and her bachelor’s degree from Middlebury College, where she graduated magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
