Notable names for number two at DOJ

Now available at law.com is this article from Legal Times discussing the names making the rounds for the second spot at the Justice Department in the Obama Administration.  Here are snippets from the article:

With congressional pressure mounting, the short list for the Department of Justice's No. 2. position appears to be getting shorter all the time.

President-elect Barack Obama's transition staff has declined to discuss potential Justice nominees, or even reveal who on the transition team is mustering names. But Washington lawyers have been speculating for weeks that Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr's David Ogden, who is heading the Justice Department transition team, is the likely pick for deputy attorney general. One Washington lawyer close to the transition says his nomination is all but assured.

Elena Kagan, dean of Harvard Law School, has also been named as a possibility, though many say the position would be an odd fit. Denied a hearing by Republicans after President Bill Clinton nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in 1999, Kagan has re-emerged as a potential Supreme Court pick for Obama....

The deputy attorney general, who oversees the day-to-day operation of the department, typically comes to the job with a criminal law background, but [Ogden's law parter Randolf] Moss says Ogden and Holder would complement each other.

"The fact that Eric brings enormous expertise on criminal matters creates a nice balance," Moss says. And he adds that Ogden was associate deputy attorney general under then-Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, a job that required his involvement in numerous criminal investigations. Gorelick is now Ogden's colleague at Wilmer.