Preeta Bansal

Preeta Bansal, former Solicitor General of New York state who serves as chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), has joined law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP of New York.

Skadden is a reputed law firm which has argued important cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. She will concentrate on the First Amendment litigation and counseling, according to the law firm. Bansal is a magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard-Radcliffe college and a magna cum laude of Harvard Law School where she served as supervising editor of Harvard Law Review.

USCIRF advises the president, the secretary of state, and Congress on religious freedom in other countries and how best to promote it. She was elected to the Commission’s chair on June 30.

Prior to her appointment as N.Y. solicitor general, Bansal served in the Clinton administration ) as counselor in the Justice Department and as special counsel in the Office of the White House Counsel, where she focused on the president’s judicial nominations, coordination of the U.S. agenda for the U.N. Conference on Women (Beijing), issues relating to youth violence and violence against women, and defense of the First Lady’s Health Care Task Force.

Bansal was born in Roorkee, India, and came to the American Midwest with her family at the age of 3.

(Compiled from news dispatches by M. Chooki)