Julie Brill, an assistant attorney general from Vermont, is replacing newly-elected state Sen. Josh Stein as the state's top consumer watchdog.

Attorney General Roy Cooper has hired Brill to be the head of his Consumer Protection Division. She has been working in the Vermont Attorney General's Consumer Protection and Antitrust divisions since October 1991, Dan Kane reports.

Jennifer Canada, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said that Brill was instrumental in launching the Vermont office's litigation, legislative and regulatory strategies in a wide variety of consumer and business matters. They include privacy, credit reporting, financial services, tobacco, food, drugs and other health-related industries.

"Consumers are facing new threats from fraud and bad deals in the struggling economy, and we are pleased to bring one of the best consumer protection attorneys in the country to North Carolina," Cooper said in a statement.

Brill graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor's degree from Princeton University and received her law degree from New York University. She starts at the end of the month. Her salary has not yet been set.

Stein, a Raleigh Democrat, was the consumer protection chief under Cooper since February 2001.