Gov.-Elect Shapiro chooses top AG crime staffer as legal adviser
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Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro, it’s safe to say, did not conduct an exhaustive search for his top legal adviser as governor.
She’s already working for him.
Shapiro announced Tuesday he will appoint Executive Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Selber to serve as his General Counsel, essentially the governor’s top legal advisor on policy and administration matters, and traditionally one of the key figures on any governor’s senior staff.
Selber’s was one of several top staff jobs announced Tuesday, along with the appointment of Uri Monson, chief financial officer of the Philadelphia School District, as state budget secretary. Monson also had worked for Shapiro when the Gov.-elect served as a Montgomery County Commissioner ten years ago.
“These dedicated public servants will help us meet the challenges facing our Commonwealth while upholding the highest standards of ethics and integrity,” Shapiro said in a statement provided by his transition office.
“Jen demonstrated extraordinary judgment in the Office of Attorney General and her management skills are of the highest caliber — I have complete confidence and trust in her ability to serve as General Counsel. Uri is one of the sharpest minds in Pennsylvania — he has led the School District of Philadelphia into an unparalleled period of fiscal stability and he was instrumental in turning around Montgomery County’s finances as my CFO when we kept taxes low and grew our economy.”
The positions do not require Senate confirmation.
Selber’s appointment is a bit unusual in that she has spent almost her entire career as a lawyer in criminal law, and specifically in homicide prosecutions. Prosecution of criminal cases, meanwhile, is about the only aspect of law that a governor’s general counsel will never be involved in.
But Selber, a native of Merion in Montgomery County, told PennLive she’s made a similar jump before, and said she feels ready for the new post on several levels.
Specifically, it was six years ago that then newly-elected Attorney General Shapiro’s transition team recruited Selber to head up that office’s Criminal Division.
For Selber, who had spent her career as a prosecutor working almost exclusively in homicide, that was a just as much a universe-expanding moment. Having worked as a line prosecutor in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office since 1999, Selber became Chief of the Homicide Unit in 2012.
And then, she was suddenly top manager of a portfolio that included drug crimes, public corruption, child pornography, environmental crimes, insurance fraud and much, much more – not to mention supervising grand jury investigations.
Just as importantly, she found herself working with and learning to trust 100-plus attorneys and 300 agents who she understood knew more about their specific areas of interest than she did.
“I was actually nervous about this six years ago when I did it,” Selber recalled in a interview with PennLive. But Selber said she came to realize that “everybody is an expert in their own field, and what I needed to do was be a good listener and ask the right questions.”
It’s that experience, Selber believes, that will continue to serve her well at the Capitol where the range of case topics will again grow exponentially.
She is also pleased to continue her relationship with Shapiro, who Selber said she did not know at the time she joined the Attorney General’s staff, but with whom she now has a relationship “built on mutual respect and trust, and we understand each other very well.”
That latter point is a good start for both: the top lawyer is one of only a handful of positions that make up the governor’s senior staff, and others who have been in that circle have noted that deep levels of personal trust are critical.
Selber, a 52-year-old mom of three and wife to Dr. Joshua DeSipio, a gastroenterologist at Cooper University Hospital, is a graduate of Duke University and the University of Virginia’s School of Law.
The daughter of a speech pathologist and an advertising copy writer, she said she was attracted to law as an extension of an early interest in public service, and the good of “speaking up for people who either couldn’t speak up for themselves or who were not in a position to protect themselves.”
As a prosecutor, she tried a string of Philadelphia’s most notorious crimes, including the 2006 neglect and starvation death of Danieal Kelly that shook up the city’s child welfare system; the 2007 shooting of Police Officer Chuck Cassidy as he walked in on a doughnut shop robbery; and the involuntary manslaughter convictions of a demolition contractor behind a 2013 wall collapse that killed six people in a Salvation Army thrift store.
As for her next post, Selber said: “I am honored that the Governor-Elect has entrusted me with this great responsibility. I look forward to building a team that will meet this moment and uphold fair, lawful and ethical governance across all corners of the government.”
Shapiro credits Monson with helping the Montgomery County achieve a balanced budget and financial stability.
Since 2016, Monson has served as the Chief Financial Officer for the School District of Philadelphia, helping the district reach its most favorable student to staff ratios in over a decade, while also making significant investments in its aging infrastructure. In October, Monson became deputy superintendent for operations.
Rounding out Tuesday’s transition news, Shapiro said he was naming Larry Hailsham Jr. of Pittsburgh as his executive deputy chief of staff. Hailsham had served as political director of Shapiro’s gubernatorial campaign.