She'll be 'acting' . . .and active

Laurie Magid knows that she will be an "acting" U.S. attorney only until a permanent one is nominated by the next president.

But that doesn't mean that Magid, who will be the first woman U.S. attorney here when she takes over next week from Patrick Meehan, intends just to keep the seat warm for a successor.

Magid said yesterday that while the U.S. Attorney's Office is "in a period of transition," her goal is to "build on the legacy" that Meehan created in the areas of gun violence, health-care fraud and public corruption.

Magid, 47, became a deputy U.S. attorney in 2001 and was promoted to first assistant in 2005.

Before that, she was an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia and Delaware County for 13 years.

Former Gov. Tom Ridge appointed Magid as a commissioner on the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing for five years.

Magid also has taught at Villanova, Temple and Widener law schools, and has published widely on criminal law and other issues in academic law reviews.

Magid, the married mother of three, grew up in Englishtown, N.J. She graduated from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania in 1982 and from Columbia Law School in 1985. *