Feb 17, 2006 8:47 pm US/Central
Heffelfinger's Interim Replacement Named
Minneapolis (AP) ―
Rachel K. Paulose was appointed the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota to succeed Tom Heffelfinger on Feb. 28, the U.S. Justice Department announced Friday.
Paulose will serve under an Attorney General appointment until a successor is appointed by the president.
Paulose, 32, is senior counsel to Acting Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and the Justice Department's special counsel for health care fraud, according to a written release from the department.
Heffelfinger announced his resignation Tuesday.
Paulose was a prosecutor as an assistant U.S. attorney for Minnesota from 1999 to 2002 and then worked in private practice for the Dorsey & Whitney law firm in Minneapolis. Before 1999, she worked in the Justice Department as an attorney general's honors program trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division.
With a law degree from Yale, the former Eagan resident began her legal career in Minneapolis as a law clerk for Chief Judge James B. Loken of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1997 to 1998.
In 1994, she graduated summa cum laude from the University of Minnesota, where she was Phi Beta Kappa and a Truman Scholar. She also served as a student representative on the University of Minnesota Board of Regents.
Paulose serves on the board of the Minnesota Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and is the Vice President for the 8th Circuit. She also served on the Board of Minnesota Chapter of the National Asian-Pacific Bar Association.
The Justice Department also announced that James E. Lackner was named First Assistant United States Attorney.
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