THE WHITE HOUSE

                     Office of the Press Secretary
                       (The Hamptons, New York)
________________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                                      July 31, 1998

                           PRESIDENT CLINTON 
             NAMES STEPHEN W. PRESTON AS GENERAL COUNSEL 
                    OF THE DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

The President today announced the nomination of Stephen W. Preston as General Counsel of the Department of the Navy.

Mr. Stephen W. Preston, of the District of Columbia, has been a Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice since September 1995, where he is in charge of the Appellate Staff of the Civil Division. For the two years prior to going to the Department of Justice, Mr. Preston served in the Office of the General Counsel of the Department of Defense, initially as the Deputy General Counsel (Legal Counsel), then as the Principal Deputy General Counsel. He was at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering from 1986 to 1993, and was a Partner at the time of his move to government service. From 1984 to 1985, he was a Visiting Fellow in the Washington office of the Center for Law in the Public Interest. From 1983 to 1984, he served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable Phyllis A. Kravitch on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.

Mr. Preston received his J.D. (magna cum laude) from Harvard in 1983; completed a graduate program in Anglo-Irish literature at Trinity College, University of Dublin in 1980; and received his B.A. (summa cum laude) from Yale University in 1979.

The General Counsel is the Chief Legal Officer of the Department of the Navy and provides legal advice, counsel, and guidance to the Secretary of the Navy and the other Civilian Executive Assistants and their staffs on any issue or matter involving the Department of the Navy.

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