President Biden announced 10 key nominations on Monday, including the nomination of Sam Bagenstos to General Counsel of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Samuel R. Bagenstos currently serves as General Counsel to the Office of Management and Budget. He is on leave from his position as the Frank G. Millard Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School. From 2009 to 2011, Bagenstos served as a political appointee in the Obama-Biden Administration’s Department of Justice, where he was Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Pursuant to an appointment by Governor Gretchen Whitmer, he chaired the Michigan Employment Relations Commission from 2019 to 2021. An expert in civil rights law, Bagenstos wrote the leading law school casebook on disability rights law and has engaged with state Medicaid systems as a lawyer, advocate, and consultant to promote community-based services for individuals with disabilities. He has argued four cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, including key matters under the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as Young v. UPS, a case that established new protections for pregnant workers. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Harvard Law School, Bagenstos clerked for Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court of the United States.
