President Obama announced on December 22 that Sally Quillian Yates, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, will be nominated to be the Deputy Attorney General. Yates, currently vice chairwoman of the the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee, has worked in the U.S Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia since 1989, and as U.S. Attorney since her Senate confirmation on March 10, 2010. She is a 1986 graduate of the University of Georgia School of Law.

Yates would replace Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole, who is stepping down in January to take a job in the private sector. The Senate is expected to begin the confirmation hearing for attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch in the second or third week of January. Holder has said he will remain as attorney general until a nominee is confirmed.