Neal Kumar Katyal, Professor of Law at the Georgetown University Law School in Washington, DC, has been appointed Principal Deputy Solicitor General. Katyal will be the number two person at the solicitor general's office in the Department of Justice.Katyal is now the highest ranking Indian American in the US DoJ.

Katyal is also in the thick of things re Guantanamo bay prision and the defense of
Enemy Combatants" bt George Bush/Cheney admin, On June 29, 2006,  the US supreme court sided with Katyal's arguments on behalf of Salim Ahmed Hamdan -- a former chauffeur for Osama bin Laden  which challenged the policy of military trials at Guantanamo Bay and found that President George W Bush's military tribunals violated the constitutional separation of powers, domestic military law and international law


PREETA BANSAL  President Barack Obama appointed Bansal as General Counsel and Senior Policy Advisor at the Office of Management and Budget,- which will oversee the transition and implement changes of the new administration. No Senate confirmation is needed for this position because it is a White House position.

She is a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, she is a member and past chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and former Solicitor General of the State of New York during Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's first term. Following private practice in Washington, D.C., Bansal worked in the Clinton Administration from 1993 to 1996 as a Counselor in the U.S. Department of Justice and as a White House Special Counsel.

Bansal was raised in Lincoln, Nebraska. She received an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1986 and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1989. She served as Supervising Editor of the Harvard Law Review. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she clerked for Chief Judge James L. Oakes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1989 to 1990 and for United States Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens from 1990 to 1991.