Executive Branch

Harvard Law Alum With 'Highest GPA' Joins the Obama-Biden Team

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Ronald Klain, a former partner of O’Melveny & Myers who served as chief of staff to vice president Al Gore, will now reportedly reprise that role as chief of staff to vice president-elect Joe Biden.

And Klain has another qualification, too: Not only is he a Harvard law grad, like many other members of the transition team for Biden and president-elect Barack Obama, but he’s also one of the best and the brightest, according to the Am Law Daily.

As a student at Harvard Law School, Klain won the Sears Prize, four of which are awarded annually to the first- and second-year students with the highest grade point averages. He graduated magna cum laude in 1987 and started clerking for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White in the same year, Politico reports.

Related ABAJournal.com coverage:

Better Question: Who Isn’t a Lawyer on Obama’s Transition Team?

Obama is Second US President with a Harvard Law Degree

Updated at 7:45 a.m. Nov. 14 to make a headline change, and at 11:08 a.m to correct misdated information.


Correction

The initial version of “Harvard Law Alum With ‘Highest GPA’ Joins the Obama-Biden Team,” Nov. 13, had some incorrectly dated items. Robert Klein in fact graduated from Harvard Law School in 1987. He won the Sears Prize—awarded to the two first-year and two second-year students with the highest grade point averages—prior to his graduation year.

ABAJournal.com regrets the errors.

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