Will bring to the job: Experience in foreign policy formulation from his State Department days; expertise in how foreign policy is dealt with in the Senate from his time as Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s chief foreign policy aide; and a first-class litigator’s approach to negotiations and the navigation of complex issues.

Used to work as: Certainly the only trial lawyer who has represented a president (Bill Clinton) and a man who shot a president (John W. Hinckley Jr.); he was the chief coordinator of the legal team that successfully represented Mr. Clinton at his impeachment trial in Congress and one of the lawyers that won a verdict of “not guilty by reason of insanity” for Mr. Hinckley, who shot President Reagan outside a Washington hotel in 1981. In 2000, he represented Juan Miguel Gonzáles, the father of a 6-year-old Cuban boy, Elián Gonzáles, whose mother drowned trying to reach Florida; the custody battle ranged across the volatile field of Cuban-American relations and ended with the boy’s return to Cuba. Mr. Craig not only worked on foreign policy for Mr. Kennedy but also defended on an assault charge his nephew William Kennedy Smith, who had earlier been acquitted on criminal rape charges in 1991. Mr. Craig was also director of the office of policy and planning at the State Department.

In his own words: When defending Mr. Clinton, he was widely recognized for a strategy of acknowledging wrongdoing on the president’s part but arguing forcefully that it was not an impeachable offense. Mr. Clinton’s account of his relations with a former Arkansas state employee, Paula Jones, was, he told Congress, “evasive, incomplete, misleading, even maddening,” but not perjury.

Is linked to Mr. Obama by: Having committed himself to Mr. Obama early in the Democratic primary campaign, despite his long and close relationship with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Mr. Clinton, both of whom he knew from law school. The Clintons were said to be stunned by Mr. Craig’s support of Mr. Obama, particularly when he issued a statement rebutting Mrs. Clinton’s assertions that she had been deeply involved in her husband’s foreign policy successes.

Carries as baggage: Very little, and a White House appointment would not require Senate confirmation. He once faced some limited criticism for his representation of one of Haiti’s wealthiest families, the Mevs, in their efforts to persuade the United States to protect their business interests during the political turmoil that followed the overthrow of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as president in 2004.

Also known for: His local activities. Despite his engagement at the highest levels of government and policy, Mr. Craig has found time to be active in local politics in his neighborhood in northwest Washington, regularly serving, for example, as a moderator for debates among candidates for City Council positions.

Résumé includes: Born in Norfolk, Va., on March 4, 1945 ... his father, William Craig, was a Navy officer who became the dean of men at Stanford after the war, then ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor of Vermont, which Mr. Craig considers his home state ... a graduate of Exeter Academy, Harvard College, Cambridge University and Yale Law School ... a partner at Williams & Connolly ... married to Margaret D. Noyes, known as Derry, with whom he has five children.