TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Nov 18, 2016

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will be led by two non-lawyers in the next Congress. Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa -- the committee's first ever non-lawyer chair -- will continue in the position he has held since 2014. This week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, became the ranking member of the committee. She replaces Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, who was a practicing attorney before he joined Congress. Responding to concerns that Feinstein is not a lawyer, her former chief counsel said the move “illustrates how legal issues are increasingly seen as societal and political issues” and that having “good, hard-working, smart people running these committees” is more important than whether they have a law degree. Today’s General Counsel has an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal story.