Each evening, the Staff Secretary assembles the President's briefing book for the following day's presidential appointments or events.

John D. Podesta serves as Assistant to the President and Staff Secretary. He is also a member of the council of the Administrative Conference of the United States.

Before joining the Administration, Mr. Podesta was President and General Counsel of Podesta Associates, Inc., a Washington, DC government relations and public affairs firm. He has had extensive Capitol Hill experience, serving as Chief Counsel to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, and as Chief Minority counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittees on Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks; Security and Terrorism; and Regulatory Reform.

He has also served as a trial attorney in the Land and Natural Resources Division of the US Department of Justice, and as a Special Assistant to the Director of ACTION, the federal volunteer agency.

Mr. Podesta is a 1976 graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, and a 1971 graduate of the Knox College.