Preeta D Bansal, a former solicitor general of the state of New York who left the Obama administration to join an undisclosed think-tank in June 2011, has returned to government. President Barack Obama December 7 appointed her to the 10-member Administrative Conference of the United States. It will be her second time serving on the panel. The Administrative Conference is an independent federal agency dedicated to improving administrative processes by providing nonpartisan advice and recommendations to improve federal agency procedures. Terms are three years and members include federal officials and experts from the private sector and academia. Bansal, 46, served in the Obama administration previously as general counsel and senior policy advisor for the Office of Management and Budget from 2009-2011. In that capacity, she was a government member of the Council of the Administrative Conference, serving as vice chair from 2010 until 2011. Bansal is a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Before joining the Obama administration, she was a partner and led the appellate litigation practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom, LLP, in New York. A former clerk for Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, Bansal while in private law practice was a commissioner of the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving as chair from 2004-05. The Indian American has a JD from Harvard Law School, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, and an AB from Harvard-Radcliffe College. In a statement naming Bansal and another member to the panel, Obama said, "I am proud to appoint such impressive individuals to these important roles, and I am grateful they have agreed to lend their considerable talents to this administration."