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The Candidates

Chris Kelly (D), Businessman/Attorney

With his unique experience in law, business and public policy, Chris Kelly brings a fresh perspective to the attorney general's office. In the early 1990s, Kelly served as a domestic policy advisor to former President Clinton before graduating from Harvard Law School and serving as editor-in-chief of the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology.  Returning home to California in 1997, Kelly then worked for a federal judge in San Diego, assisting on a wide range of civil and criminal cases such as drug smuggling and money laundering.

Kelly then joined Palo Alto law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati where he represented technology innovators including Netscape in the Microsoft antitrust case. In 2005, when Facebook had only two dozen employees, Kelly served as the company's first general counsel and also as chief privacy officer and head of global public policy, overseeing privacy, security, and safety for one of the most successful Internet-based companies ever.  In his role as chief privacy officer of Facebook, Kelly worked side by side with attorneys general in all 50 states to make the Internet a safer place, crack down on sexual predators, and protect consumers from identity theft. Kelly was also a champion of Facebook's use to reconnect governments with their citizens.