Firm Aims to Buy Its Way Into Supreme Court Practice

By Tony Mauro
The American Lawyer
New York Lawyer

October 6, 2004

The 164-year-old law firm Baker Botts is known for many things, but a significant U.S. Supreme Court practice has not been one of them. Which is why, when the firm announced in July that it had hired three Supreme Court clerks fresh out of their year at the Court -- with the possibility of a fourth and fifth clerk coming over too -- it came as a considerable surprise. Most of the veteran Supreme Court firms consider themselves lucky if one or two clerks sign on in a given year. So why would three or more clerks who could write their own tickets at almost any firm choose to climb aboard at Baker Botts?

The answer goes back nearly five years and tells the story of how a venerable law firm goes about launching a Supreme Court practice, even at a time of fierce competition for a shrinking number of cases. It also shows how, in the process, a firm can rejuvenate and energize a prestigious part of its business. The next generation of top Supreme Court advocates may be assembling at Baker Botts.

As partners tell it, Baker Botts has known for a long while that -- although its trial and appellate practice in Texas was strong -- its practice in those fields in Washington, D.C., was in need of beefing up. And there is no better way to attract the necessary talent for an appellate practice in D.C. than by establishing a Supreme Court presence. "Great appellate practices have Supreme Court work," says Jeffrey Lamken, the firm's new appellate practice head. "Sophisticated, interesting work attracts great people."

The firm's leadership thought it could buy its way into a Supreme Court presence, as well as get a good contingent of litigators, when it acquired the 30-member D.C. firm Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in late 2000. In addition to the likes of Herbert "Jack" Miller Jr. -- a top official in Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department and later Richard Nixon's longtime attorney -- the firm boasted Nathan Lewin, a top-tier Supreme Court advocate with more than two dozen cases under his belt. Then-solicitor general Seth Waxman was a Miller Cassidy alumnus, and the hope was that he would return to the firm, now subsumed in Baker Botts.

"We wanted to take the whole firm over to Baker Botts," said Stephen Braga, a Miller Cassidy partner who is now hiring partner at Baker Botts. The Texas firm, he said, was "missing a piece" that Miller Cassidy could supply.

But things did not work out as planned, at least on the appellate side. Lewin did not move to Baker Botts with his firm, opting instead to open his own shop, Lewin & Lewin, with his daughter Alyza. Waxman did not return to his prior home, moving instead to Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering (now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr). Former William Rehnquist clerk Jody Kris went with Waxman, and former Byron White clerk Scott Nelson went over to Public Citizen Litigation Group.

Law Firms, Like Other Businesses, Are Hiring Gcs

By Charles Toutant
New York Lawyer
New Jersey Law Journal
November 22, 2004

There's no getting around the facts: Law is a business, law firms are companies and companies need corporate counsel.

The idea of a "lawyer's lawyer" who handles the firm's personal legal work is not new. Most largish firms have one or more lawyers informally dedicated to ethics compliance, risk management, insurance and even litigation matters.

But with lawyers finding themselves more and more the subjects of government scrutiny and the targets of lawsuits, de facto has become de jure at many large firms.

A survey last March by Altman Weil Inc. of Newtown Square, Pa., found that 63 percent of the nation's 200 largest firms had designated a general counsel and 10 percent planned to do so in the next year.

The concept is starting to catch on in New Jersey, too. Drinker Biddle & Reath and Duane Morris, both with significant operations in New Jersey, have had a general counsel for about seven years. McCarter & English named its first general counsel in October 2003, and Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione did the same this past January. McCarter and Gibbons, Del Deo say their legal malpractice carrier, Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society of Chicago, encouraged them to carve out general counsel posts.

The trend is driven by traditional malpractice claims, clients' conflict suits, third-party suits alleging that lawyers assisted in their clients' illegal acts, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and increased prosecutions of lawyers over clients' questionable tax shelters.