John G. Levi was nominated to serve on the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation

Legal Services Corporation

The Legal Services Corporation is a private, non-profit corporation established by the United States Congress. It seeks to ensure equal access to justice under the law for all Americans by providing civil legal assistance to those who otherwise would be unable to afford it...

 by President Barack Obama

Barack Obama

Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 on August 6, 2009, and his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2010. He was elected Chairman of the LSC Board by his fellow Board members on April 7, 2010.

Levi, a partner at Sidley Austin

Sidley Austin

Sidley Austin LLP, formerly known as Sidley Austin Brown & Wood LLP, is one of the oldest law firms in the world. It is the sixth-largest U.S.-based corporate law firm with more than 1,650 lawyers, annual revenues of more than one billion dollars, and offices in 17 cities worldwide, with the most...

, played a pivotal role in Obama’s younger days. The president and wife Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama

Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama is the wife of the 44th and incumbent President of the United States, Barack Obama, and is the first African-American First Lady of the United States...

 met each other for the first time after Levi hired them in 1989 to work at the Chicago law firm. Newton N. Minow

Newton N. Minow

Newton Norman Minow is an American attorney and former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. His speech referring to television as a "vast wasteland" is cited even as the speech has passed its 50th anniversary...

 describes his and Levi's role in bringing the two together: “My daughter Martha called to say that one of her best students, Barack Obama, wanted to spend the summer as a law firm associate in Chicago,” said Minow, referring to his daughter, law professor Martha Minow

Martha Minow

Martha Louise Minow is the Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and the Dean of Harvard Law School. She teaches civil procedure, constitutional law, family law, international criminal justice, jurisprudence, law and education, nonprofit organizations, and the public law workshop...

. “I called our partner John Levi, who heads our recruiting for the firm, and suggested this; John laughed and told me that he had already heard about Barack and had already hired him.”

Levi was born in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

. His father was Edward H. Levi

Edward H. Levi

Edward Hirsch Levi was an American academic leader, scholar, and statesman who served as United States Attorney General. He is regularly cited as the "model of a modern attorney general," the "greatest lawyer of his time," and considered, along with Yale's Whitney Griswold, the greatest of...

, a former president of the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 and United States Attorney General

United States Attorney General

The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...

 under President Gerald R. Ford. He received an undergraduate degree from University of Rochester

University of Rochester

The University of Rochester is a private, nonsectarian, research university in Rochester, New York, United States. The university grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. The university has six schools and various interdisciplinary programs.The...

 with honors in 1969. He received his law degree in 1972 from Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School

Harvard Law School is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University. Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is the oldest continually-operating law school in the United States and is home to the largest academic law library in the world. The school is routinely ranked by the U.S...

, and an LLM from Harvard in 1973. His brother, David F. Levi

David F. Levi

David F. Levi is a U.S. jurist and current Dean of the Duke University School of Law. From 1990–2007, he was a Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, serving as Chief Judge since 2003. At the time Levi left the bench, he was widely considered to be one...

, is the 14th Dean of Duke Law School. His cousin Daniel Meltzer

Daniel Meltzer

Daniel Meltzer is an American lawyer and law professor, and is a presidential lawyer in the Obama Administration through June 1, 2010.-Education and career:...

is a former White House Counsel.