Washington, DC - Jul 30, 2010 - Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski has appointed Zac Katz as legal advisor, with particular responsibility for wireline communications, international and Internet issues. He succeeds Priya Aiyar, who has been appointed deputy chief counsel to the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Oil Drilling.

For the past year, Katz has served as deputy chief of the Office of Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis. He joined the FCC from the White House Counsel's Office and previously practiced law at Munger, Tolles and Olson in Los Angeles, focusing on transactional and litigation matters involving intellectual property. Katz served as a law clerk for the Honorable Kim M. Wardlaw of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after receiving his law degree from Yale, where he was editor-in-chief of The Yale Law Journal and active in the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization. Before law school he worked with technology companies at a strategy consulting and investment firm in Silicon Valley.

Prior to joining the FCC, Aiyar was a partner at Kellogg, Huber, Hansen, Todd, Evans and Figel. She began her legal career as a law clerk for the Honorable Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Honorable Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, Harvard College, and the University of Oxford, which she attended as a Rhodes Scholar.