Office of Special Counsel Finally Gets New Chief

The White House announced Wednesday that President Obama would appoint Carolyn Lerner to head the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, the agency charged with investigating allegations of prohibited personnel practices in the civil service.

Lerner is a founding partner of Heller, Huron, Chertkof, Lerner, Simon & Salzman, a Washington, D.C. law firm that focuses on civil rights and employment matters. She also serves on the boards of the Center for WorkLife Law, which works on behalf of employees family responsibilities, and the WAGE Project, which is aimed at fighting discrimination against women in the workplace.

OSC has been without a permanent leader since Scott Bloch left the agency under a cloud in 2008. Last summer, he pleaded guilty to withholding information from federal investigators regarding allegations he used an IT firm to "scrub" files from his work computer.