FTC Announces Appointment of Jay L. Himes as New Administrative Law Judge

The Federal Trade Commission announced the appointment of Jay L. Himes to serve as one of the agency’s Administrative Law Judges, who are responsible for independent adjudicative fact-finding in the agency’s administrative litigation and rulemaking proceedings.

The Commission voted 3-0 in December 2023 to approve the appointment of Himes as an Administrative Law Judge.

Himes joins Administrative Law Judge D. Michael Chappell. The Commission is expanding the number of administrative law judges to help handle an increased workload stemming from FTC rulemakings and enforcement matters as well as reviews of final civil sanctions imposed by the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority, a private nonprofit that the FTC oversees. 

Himes most recently served as special litigation counsel for the Office of the Attorney General for New York and previously served as chief of the office’s antitrust bureau. Himes also served in private practice including as a partner and co-chair of the antitrust group at Labaton Sucharow LLP, as counsel and associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, and as a litigation member at Snow, Becker, Kroll, Klaris & Krauss, P.C.

An experienced and highly respected litigator, Himes was selected by Judge William Orrick III of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California as a court-appointed monitor in the successfully challenged anticompetitive merger case of United States v. Bazaarvoice, Inc. Himes earned his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Wisconsin.