The search is underway to fill the soon-to-be-vacant U.S. attorney slot in the Northern District of California.

Sidley Austin announced Wednesday that current U.S. Attorney Brian Stretch is set to join its San Francisco office in February. A spokesman for the office confirmed that Stretch's last day in the post will be Saturday and that his temporary replacement is set to be named Sunday. But the search to find a more permanent replacement for the position, which requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate, is underway with the office of Sen. Kamala Harris, D-California, asserting a lead role according to sources familiar with the process.

Among those said to be potential candidates for the post are a number alumni of the local prosecutor's office. Two-time San Francisco U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello worked alongside U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions when he was a U.S. attorney in Alabama and is said to have traveled to Washington, D.C., for the recent Federalist Society convention to campaign for the job. Also in the running are Sidley Austin partner David Anderson, who served as Russoniello's No. 2 in the San Francisco office, and Judge Anne-Christine Massullo, a former federal prosecutor currently serving as the supervising family law judge in San Francisco Superior Court. Kathryn Haun, a former prosecutor who now teaches at Stanford Graduate School of Business and sits on the board of Coinbase Inc., has also been in the running. Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco attorney who backed President Donald Trump during his campaign, previously expressed interest in the job but is no longer in contention.

In a phone interview Wednesday morning, Stretch said that his successor will have an “extremely diversified” portfolio of priorities in a district that is “so big and so varied with so many different threats.” The district runs up California's Pacific Coast from Monterrey County in the South all the way to the Oregon border.

“First and foremost the Department of Justice maintains a responsibility to protect this country against terrorism,” Stretch said. But he added the job also is about “identifying with and understanding the priorities set by the attorney general and the deputy attorney general and making sure those priorities are successful as they are put into place in the Northern District of California.”

A veteran of the local federal prosecutor's office, Stretch has served in various leadership positions over his 18-year tenure, including first assistant U.S. attorney under Melinda Haag and chief of the office's criminal division. Stretch was appointed to the U.S. attorney post by the U.S Chief District Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the Northern District after Haag's departure in 2015.

“There comes a kind of natural time in transitions to reflect back on the great work that's been done and look ahead,” Stretch said. “That natural time has come for me.”

Stretch said he worked with Mlegal Group recruiter Natasha Innocenti to find a firm with a collaborative, team-based approach to problem-solving. “It was important to me to identify a firm whose values I shared,” said Stretch, who plans to focus on working on internal investigations for the firm's technology, life sciences and financial services clients in the region.

Stretch said DOJ rules will bar him indefinitely from working on matters that he handled personally and from interacting with lawyers on matters that he had any supervision of for two years. “It's something that's reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and fortunately the firm and the DOJ both have very sophisticated conflict checks,” Stretch said.

In a press release announcing the move, Sharon Flanagan, managing partner of Sidley's San Francisco office, said that Stretch's “substantial experience as a first-chair trial lawyer in high-stakes cases will add value to the San Francisco office as well as to the robust national practice.”

Said Flanagan, “We look forward to drawing from his tremendous knowledge to advise our clients facing government investigations and other complex white collar matters.”

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