In the aftermath of the firing of Geoffrey Berman as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, his top deputy, Audrey Strauss, was named the Acting U.S. Attorney for the office. Strauss will likely serve until a presidentially appointed successor is confirmed by the Senate. President Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the permanent post, but there is some doubt whether confimation will take place before the November election.

Strauss becomes the second woman to head the Southern District following Mary Jo White, who served from 1993 to 2002. Strauss served in the Southern District from 1976 to 1983, including time as the chief of criminal appeals and the securities fraud unit. When Berman became the U.S. Attorney in 2018, he brought Strauss out of retirement to become his senior counsel and later his deputy. They also worked together on the independent counsel’s investigation into the Iran-contra scandal.

Strauss spent more than two decades at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, where she led the white-collar criminal defense group. She earned her law degree from Columbia Law School.