Jeffrey L. Bleich, 48

Litigation

Soon after President Barack Obama took office, he named Jeffrey Bleich special counsel to the president. And earlier this month Bleich's presidential bona fides were on display again when Obama nominated him to be ambassador to Australia. Last year, Bleich served as co-chairman of the California chapter of the Obama for America campaign. He co-founded the California Lawyers for Obama campaign, and led the vetting team for most of the senior administration officials. All the while, he was also a practicing lawyer. He successfully persuaded U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of San Francisco that MultiMetrixs infringed patents owned by his client, semiconductor manufacturing company Applied Materials Inc. He also did work for Hewlett-Packard Co., Cisco Systems Inc., Microsoft Corp., and Willie Mays' Say Hey Foundation.