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N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper has appointed a new head of the Consumer Protection Division.

Adam Hartzell, 40, a lawyer and the current executive director of Interact, a nonprofit that helps victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, will take over the division, according to a news release. Hartzell will replace Julie Brill, whom President Barack Obama nominated to the Federal Trade Commission.

The division includes a staff of more than 50 attorneys, consumer specialists, investigators and support personnel. Last year, the division handled 22,000 complaints from North Carolina consumers. Topics included health care, unfair loans, telemarketing fraud and foreclosure scams.

THERAPY OR EDUCATION: A bill would require health insurers to cover behavioral therapy and other treatments for children with autism.

Advocates say the therapies teach social and behavioral skills that help children who have autism function in the mainstream. Opponents, including the state's largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, contend that the interventions are essentially schooling, not medical treatments coverable by health policies. (N&O)

ABOUT THAT LIFE INSURANCE: The N.C. Department of Transportation owes $159,370 to 93 workers who had life insurance premiums deducted even though the employees' policies were cancelled. (N&O)

BRILL TO FTC: North Carolina's top consumer advocate is leaving after a year on the job to become a commissioner with the Federal Trade Commission.

Julie Brill was confirmed late Wednesday by the U.S. Senate. Brill became the senior deputy attorney general and chief of consumer protection and antitrust for the N.C. Department of Justice in February 2009. (N&O)

LAWYER PASSES: Howard Twiggs, a Raleigh lawyer and former legislator who led the American Trial Lawyers Association in battles on Capitol Hill, died Thursday morning after exercising. He was 77. (N&O)

President Barack Obama has nominated North Carolina’s top consumer advocate for a position on the Federal Trade Commission.

Julie Brill became the senior deputy attorney general and chief of consumer protection and antitrust for the N.C. Department of Justice in February. Before that role, she spent 20 years in a similar role in Vermont.

If confirmed, Brill would become a commissioner on the FTC, responsible for enforcing antitrust legislation and protecting consumers from anti-competitive practices.

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.