Pic: Williams & Connolly
Like we said when he was appointed, new White House counsel Greg Craig isn’t doing it for the money. The former Williams & Connolly partner’s financial-disclosure forms have been released and it’s a 90% pay cut.
Craig is going from making $1.7 million in private practice to $172,000 in the White House. That’s less than two of his associates, who are going with him, made. Christian Weideman, who made $310,000, and Jonathan Kravis, who made $220,000, are joining as associate counsel.
More on the associates and the comp of some other government hires after the jump.
According to the official White House press release, Weideman (we list him first because he made more money; we’re shallow like that)
served as a Law Clerk to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and as a Law Clerk to Judge Richard L. Nygaard of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Mr. Weideman most recently served as an Associate at Williams & Connolly LLP. Mr. Weideman served the Obama for America campaign as a political advisor, assisting in debate preparation and in voter protection planning. Mr. Weideman received his bachelor’s degree from The Pennsylvania State University and his J.D. from Stanford Law School, where he served as an editor of the Stanford Law Review.
Kravis, meanwhile, keeps up the tradition of the firm’s lawyers’ glistening credentials. He
recently served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. Prior to this, he was an associate at Williams & Connolly in Washington, D.C. Earlier in his career, he served as a Law Clerk to Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court of the United States and to Judge Merrick Garland of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Kravis received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College and his J.D. from Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
So from that it’s hard to tell if the $220,000 is because he had a pro rated year with some time at the USA.
The Legal Times also mentions two others fleeing BigLaw for BigGov’t:
Zuckerman Spaeder also has a former partner in the White House Counsel’s Office. According to his recently released financial disclosure report, Norman Eisen, who practiced at Zuckerman since 1991, pulled in $1.3 million before resigning in January to become Obama’s ethics counsel.
O’Melveny & Myers partner Thomas Donilon, now Obama’s deputy national security adviser, made a staggering $3.9 million before leaving O’Melveny’s D.C. office in January. The former Fannie Mae executive vice president and longtime Democratic operative lists clients such as Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs & Co.
One other lawyer we’ve been keeping an eye on is Neal Wolin. The former COO of The Hartford’s property & casualty business (a job he only held for about a year and a half following about seven years as the company’s GC) was originally appointed Deputy Counsel to the President for Economic Policy and Deputy Assistant to the President (which we described as “Larry Summers’s lawyer at the National Economic Council”). That didn’t last too long, though. After about two months, he was nominated to serve as United States Deputy Secretary of the Treasury – another non-legal job. Anyway, Wolin took home cash comp of $2.26 million, according to The Hartford’s proxy statement.
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