Eric Holder, who followed Gorelick as deputy attorney general under Clinton, said he had not heard of any former Justice Department officials who were candidates, but agreed that range was essential to the General Counsel position.

“You’re going to have everything from real estate to tort matters, occasionally perhaps even a criminal matter of some sort,” said Holder, now a partner at Washington law firm Covington and Burling. “I’d think you’d be looking for someone who’s very accomplished but also someone who’d be familiar with a wide range of subject areas.”

One University official said Summers “likes to agonize about most of his personnel decisions”—even when an internal candidate seems the heir apparent.

Summers took nearly a year to remove the acting from Divinity School Dean William A. Graham’s title and has yet to name a director of the Center for International Development which lost former head Jeffrey D. Sachs ’76 to Columbia last summer.

This search has lasted longer than has been typical of the last few General Counsel searches.

After former General Counsel Margaret H. Marshall stepped down in October 1996, then-President Neil L. Rudenstine named Taylor, who was deputy counsel, as the permanent replacement that June.

Rudenstine took four months to pick Marshall to replace Daniel Steiner ’54, who left in June 1992 after two decades as general counsel.

—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.