Senate Confirms Brill and Ramirez as FTC Commissioners

This posting was written by John W. Arden.

Julie Simone Brill and Edith Ramirez were confirmed by the Senate yesterday as Federal Trade Commissioners. Brill will serve a seven-year term, starting from September 26, 2009, while Ramirez will serve a seven-year term, starting from September 26, 2008.

“We look forward to welcoming the newly confirmed Federal Trade Commissioners Julie Brill and Edith Ramirez,” said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz. “They are both exceptionally talented and committed, and will bring a wealth of experience, knowledge, and new energy to the Commission.”

The Chairman remarked how the announcement was “bittersweet” because of the imminent departure of Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour.

“She has been a wonderful colleague and dedicated public servant over the years, and will be greatly missed,” Leibowitz said.

The two new Commissioners were nominated by the Obama Administration on November 17, 2009. Brill was nominated to succeed Commissioner Jones Harbour, whose term expired last September. Ramirez was nominated to serve the vacancy created by the departure of Commissioner Deborah Platt Majoras in March 2008.

Brill has served as Senior Deputy Attorney General and Chief of Consumer Protection for North Carolina since February 2009. Prior to that, she was an Assistant Attorney for Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the State of Vermont for more than 20 years. She is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia Law School.

Ramirez was a partner in the Los Angeles office of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, specializing in intellectual property and complex litigation. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School, where she worked on the Harvard Law Review with President Obama.

For the first time in nearly two years, the Federal Trade Commission has a full complement of members. The addition of two new Commissioners brings the membership to three Democrats (Commissiioners Leibowitz, Brill, and Ramirez) and two Republicans (Commissioners William Kovacic and J. Thomas Rosch).