THE CLINTON TRANSITION : Justice Post May Go to Van de Kamp

Former California Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp, who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1990, is under consideration for a senior Justice Department post in the Clinton Administration, transition sources said.

Van de Kamp is the most prominent of several Californians under consideration for senior legal policy posts.

Andrea S. Ordin, a former top aide to Van de Kamp who also served as the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles during the Administration of President Jimmy Carter, also has been interviewed for a Justice Department slot or the post of White House counsel, the sources said. John Emerson, a Los Angeles deputy city attorney who directed President-elect Bill Clinton’s campaign in California, could be in line for the U.S. attorney’s job in Los Angeles--the region’s top federal prosecutor--or for a senior post in the White House, officials said.

Transition sources cautioned that neither Clinton nor Atty. Gen.-designate Zoe Baird has made final decisions about the top management team for the Justice Department and several candidates remain for each of the top jobs.

Similarly, Clinton’s White House team remains to be set in place, although aides expect the President-elect to make decisions this weekend. Transition aides said that Clinton is likely to name one of several women under consideration to the White House counsel’s job. Susan Thomases, a New York lawyer who served as Clinton’s campaign and transition scheduling chief, is believed to be one of the candidates.

Asked about reports that he is a candidate for a Justice Department job, Van de Kamp said that “no one has called me directly about this.” He left open the possibility that he would take a post if one is offered. “I haven’t been approached or thought it through entirely,” he said.

Van de Kamp and his wife, Andrea, have a 13-year-old daughter, Diana, and his wife is West Coast vice president for Sotheby’s, a major fine arts auction house.

In the past, Van de Kamp, 56, has found it difficult to resist the call to public service. An heir to a restaurant and food seasoning business, Van de Kamp declined to enter the family business and instead gained extensive prosecutorial and defense experience, serving for four years as Los Angeles’ first federal public defender and as district attorney from 1975 until he was elected state attorney general in 1982.

During the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration, Van de Kamp worked in the Justice Department, heading the executive office of U.S. attorneys. At the time, he worked under Warren M. Christopher, who was the Justice Department’s No. 2 official and is now Clinton’s transition director and secretary of state-designate.

In 1977, Van de Kamp was one of five finalists proposed for FBI director by a commission appointed by then-Atty. Gen. Griffin B. Bell. The job eventually went to Judge William H. Webster, who later served as CIA director.

Asked if she is under consideration for a job in the Clinton Administration, Ordin declined comment. But other sources said that she was interviewed by Clinton in Little Rock, Ark., before he named Baird as attorney general-designate.

Ordin, 52, had been partner in charge of the litigation department of Pepper, Hamilton & Scheetz’s Los Angeles office since 1991. The firm closed its Los Angeles office Dec. 31, and a friend of Ordin said that she has been approached by other major law firms.

She was the staff director of the Los Angeles County Bar Assn. from 1973 to 1974, overlapping the time when Christopher was president of the organization. She has argued cases before the U.S. and California supreme courts, taught as an adjunct professor at the UCLA Law School, worked as legal counsel to the Fair Employment Practices Commission and served for seven years as deputy state attorney general.