Biden to pick attorney as top prosecutor
President Biden will nominate Ismail Ramsey, a Berkeleybased lawyer, to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California, the White House told The Chronicle.
Ramsey, a career white-collar attorney, previously worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the office that he will be nominated to lead. The person in the role is responsible for prosecuting violations of federal law in Northern California, and has traditionally handled high-profile cases involving Silicon Valley, including the recent trial of exTheranos founder Elizabeth Holmes. The office has seen a great deal of leadership turnover, with four people having served as U.S. attorney since 2015.
Ramsey is a founding partner at Ramsey and Ehrlich, which primarily focuses on white-collar and criminal defense cases. He is also an adjunct professor at UC Berkeley Law School and
serves as a commissioner on the city of Berkeley Police Review Commission.
Ramsey has been on the other side of big cases in the Northern District: He represented former San Francisco Public Works Director Mohammed Nuru — who pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges in January — and Anthony
Levandowski, the former Google self-driving unit Waymo employee who pleaded guilty to theft of trade secrets in 2020.
Ramsey is a graduate of Harvard Law School, the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business and clerked for former U.S. Court of Appeals Chief Judge Harry Edwards. Ramsey’s class at Harvard
included Supreme Court Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, where the two worked together on the law review.
His father, Henry Ramsey Jr., was a law scholar and former Alameda County judge.
Ramsey will need to be confirmed by the U.S. Senate. It is unlikely his nomination will be taken up until 2023, as the chamber has 17 days left in session this year.
California Sen. Dianne Feinstein put forward Ramsey for the position, her spokesperson told The Chronicle.
“Ismail Ramsey brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the job and he is extremely well qualified for the position,” Feinstein and California Sen. Alex Padilla said in a joint statement.
Martha Boersch, a longtime defense attorney in Oakland specializing in white-collar cases and a former federal prosecutor in the Northern District, said nominating a defense attorney to head a federal prosecutor’s office is not common, although “this administration is doing it more often.”
“It’s important for them to understand the difficulties and problems that defendants have to deal with when they get caught up in the system,” Boersch said, “with a view towards being fair and making sure convictions are just.”
Mary McNamara, president of the Bar Association of San Francisco, said Ramsey is a good pick for the job because of the diversity he adds to the office both as a Black man and as a member of the District Court’s panel that provides representation for indigent defendants. McNamara said he is “balanced, fair and has a lot of perspective.”