Pic: Williams & Connolly
We previously reported on a number of Obama appointments of people in or with strong ties to BigLaw. He’s at it again. This time, it’s (soon-to-be former) Williams & Connolly partner Greg Craig, whom Obama has appointed as White House Counsel.
The NY Times has an extensive profile of Craig (Harvard AB ‘67, Yale JD ‘72), who was a classmate of Hillary Clinton; the two were a year ahead of Bill. Craig became the family’s de facto lawyer, culminating in his engagement to defend Bill against the impeachment charges in 1998. Last year, though, saw a surprising turn. After thirty-odd years together, Craig endorsed Obama, whom he met through Vernon Jordan in 2003, over Hillary. Craig said it wasn’t a knock on the Clintons, “it was a choice to embrace what Barack Obama represented and who he was, what he could do for the country.”
Along the way he has had a few other high-profile engagements: he represented Kofi Annan in the oil-for-food scandal investigations; he defended (under the legendary Vince Fuller) John Hinckley in his trial for attempted murder of Reagan (wonder if he would have taken that case if Hinckley had shot a Democrat); and he represented the Washington Post in the Watergate investigation and grand-jury investigation of Spiro Agnew.
Astonishingly, even Karl Rove has nice things to say about Craig. According to the Times, Rove said Craig would “serve the new president and the country with great integrity.” In the fawning-at-times piece, the Times describes Craig thusly:
At 63, Mr. Craig fits a classic Washington prototype, the power lawyer. In a city consumed by power, power lawyers come in various stripes. The scandal lawyer extricates politicians from sticky situations. The celebrity lawyer represents big names. The talk-show lawyer sounds smooth on Sunday mornings. The lobbyist deal-maker lawyer uses political connections to open doors. The policy wonk lawyer advises behind the scenes.
More about the money, the firm, and his predecessors after the jump.
Craig is certainly not doing it for the money. The job pays $172,200 which has to be a step down from Williams & Connolly, for which good numbers don’t seem to be available. It’s not in the AmLaw Global 100, which craps out at Littler Mendelson’s $410,000 – but there’s no way Williams & Connolly’s PEP was that low – the data must not have been available. The firm does come in at #2 on the 2007 Schiltz 100, which purports to identify the best firms for associates to work at, based on a combination of prestige and low profits per partner (which is supposed to correlate to lower leverage of associates). Interesting list, by the way. Jones Day is #1, which makes the list of dubious value based entirely on my own prejudices, but the other firms tied at #2 are very respectable: Arnold & Porter, Covington & Burling, and WilmerHale.
No word yet on outgoing White House Counsel Fred Fielding’s plans, although it’s been just two years since Fielding (Gettysburg, Virginia) left his formerly eponymous firm, Wiley Rein. Fielding’s predecessor, trainwreck Harriet Miers (BS SMU ‘67, JD SMU ‘70), remains at Locke Lord Bissell & Liddell, the firm whence she came.
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