File:Alexander Acosta US Attorney.jpg

English: United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida

R. Alexander Acosta

Professional Summary

R. Alexander Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida on June 9, 2006. The Southern District comprises 15,197 square miles and extends along more than 300 miles of coastline from Key West in the South to Vero Beach in the North. The District has approximately six million people and covers nine separate counties: Monroe, Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River, Okeechobee, and Highlands. The District is home to a number of federal enclaves, including the Homestead Air Reserve Base, the Miccosukee Indian Reservation, the Everglades National Park, and the U.S. Southern Command, Department of Defense. In addition to more than twenty federal law enforcement agencies, there are approximately 120 state and local police agencies within the Southern District of Florida. As the United States Attorney, Mr. Acosta is the chief federal law enforcement officer for the District.

Prior to his appointment as United States Attorney, Mr. Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice. Mr. Acosta was the first Hispanic to serve as an Assistant Attorney General at the Department of Justice. The Civil Rights Division is responsible for enforcing federal civil rights statutes, including those statutes that prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, handicap, religion, and national origin in education, employment, credit, housing, public accommodations and facilities, voting, and certain federally funded and conducted programs. Mr. Acosta had also served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division.

Prior to his service as Assistant Attorney General, Mr. Acosta was nominated by President Bush and confirmed by the Senate to serve as a member of the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB"), an independent federal agency responsible for administering and interpreting the National Labor Relations Act, the principal national statute regulating private-sector labor relations.

A native of Miami, Florida, Mr. Acosta attended the Gulliver Schools in Miami. He earned his degrees from Harvard College and Harvard Law School. After graduation, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Samuel A. Alito, Jr. on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. He then worked at the Washington, D.C. office of the law firm Kirkland and Ellis, where he specialized in employment and labor issues. Mr. Acosta has also taught several classes on employment law, disability-based discrimination law, and civil rights law at the George Mason School of Law.