I am a lawyer, not a lobbyist. Goldman Sachs has hired me as a lawyer — to provide legal advice and to assist in its legal representation — and that is what I am doing.
– Greg Craig, former White House Counsel and now a partner at Skadden, explaining why he is not bound by the president’s ethics policy barring former White House officials from lobbying for two years after leaving office.
Gregory Craig
* Discovery in the Pennsylvania spycam case turns up thousands of screen shots and web cam photos of Lower Merion youngsters. [Threat Level/Wired]
* Goldman Sachs taps former White House counsel Greg Craig — now at Skadden — for its SEC defense team. [Politico]
* Bryan Cave’s James M. Cole may be tapped to serve as deputy attorney general. A DOJ veteran, he would also bring to the position white collar defense experience and a 1970s ‘stache. [Propublica]
* Supreme Court denies Charles Hood’s request for review of his death penalty case. That would be the case where the judge and the prosecutor used to sleep together. [Associated Press]
* Meet the Pope’s lawyer. [Associated Press]
* Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones beg New York judge for leniency. [New York Daily News]
* Happy birthday, Justice Stevens. [Associated Press via ABA Journal]
In November, Gregory Craig announced that he was leaving the White House for private practice. President Obama’s personal lawyer, Bob Bauer, was named as the new White House counsel.
In his resignation letter, Craig said that he would return to private practice “as of January 3, 2010.” At the time, we speculated that he might return to Williams & Connolly, the firm that had employed him since law school graduation. But today, W&C made it known to its associates that Craig would not be returning as a partner there.
Instead, he’ll be going to Skadden Arps. From an email sent out by Williams & Connolly senior partner Brendan Sullivan:
Greg Craig will not return to W&C as a litigator. Instead he has been invited to join Skadden to head a group which will focus on advising clients in need of public policy analysis.
Full email after the jump.
Update: Also after the jump, WSJ Law Blog sheds light on why Craig chose Skadden.
The rumors circulated back in August, but now it looks like it’s finally happening. From Marc Ambinder, shortly before 11 on Thursday night:
Sources in government say that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has decided to resign, and that the president’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer, will take his place. A formal announcement is slated next week, though word might drop tomorrow.
Looks like that announcement is getting sped up. More after the jump.
UPDATE: Greg Craig’s resignation letter, also after the jump.
Continue reading “Musical Chairs: Greg Craig Out as White House Counsel, Bob Bauer In”
Last night, the Wall Street Journal (subscription) sent out a news alert claiming that President Obama’s White House counsel, Gregory Craig, is getting kicked to the curb:
Obama administration officials are holding discussions that could result in White House counsel Gregory Craig leaving his post, following a rocky tenure, people familiar with the matter said.
The WSJ implies that Craig — a former Williams & Connolly partner, perhaps best known for extracting President Clinton from the impeachment mess — has botched advising the President on several national-security issues, including the Guantanamo prison closure, the release of national-security documents from the Bush era, and detainee holdings.
But the White House says ‘whoa, whoa, settle down now.’
Continue reading “Is White House Counsel Gregory Craig Getting Played in a Washington Parlor Game?”
Now it’s time for a post about one of our favorite subjects: the magnificent Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. First, check out what’s currently gracing the front page of the Drudge Report:
The audio clip is pretty awesome. To listen, click here.
Second, we’d like to take this opportunity to chastise any and all lawyers who enjoyed top government posts during the Clinton Administration, but now refuse to support Senator Clinton in her bid for the White House.
Here are two prominent examples. With apologies to Stephen Colbert, who isn’t exactly a Hillary supporter, a “Wag of the Finger” to:
Craig is doing this despite his close personal ties to the Clintons; the fact that he held multiple posts in the Clinton Administration, at the White House and State Department; and the alma mater he shares with the Clintons (Yale Law School — rival to Obama’s Harvard Law).
Whatever happened to gratitude? To loyalty? To standing by your friends? Apparently there is no honor among thieves — or, for that matter, political fund-raisers.
Messrs. Craig and Johnson, you may live to regret your decisions. After Senator Clinton tramples “Obambi” in the Democratic primaries, you may try to get back into her good graces. But Senator Clinton has a long memory. And you have placed yourselves on the wrong side of it.
We hope you enjoy private practice. — ’cause you shouldn’t expect a return to government anytime soon.
Kentucky Fried Hillary [iFilm]
Clinton ally, a Washington superlawyer, switches allegiance to back Obama [Chicago Sun-Times]
In Clinton’s Backyard, It’s Open Season as an Obama Fund-Raiser Lines Up Donors [New York Times]
A college graduate without student loan debt is akin to reading a kind quote about Kim Kardashian in a tabloid—it’s rare.
In the past eight years, student loan debt has nearly tripled to a whopping $1.1 trillion, and in the past 10 years, the percentage of 25-year-olds with such debt has risen from 25% to 43%
It’s gotten so bad, in fact, that New York Fed economists warned last month that the burden of student debt could stilt consumer spending by twentysomethings, as well as further hamper the recovery of the housing market and economy.
To get a better idea of what massive student loan debt (we’re talking over $100,000 massive) looks like, we talked to an attorney who graduated with a large student loan debt. We also consulted LearnVest Planning Services CFP® Katie Brewer to see just how their repayment plans stack up.
S. Fischer, 36, Attorney
Graduated: 2001
How Much I Borrowed: $100,000
What I Still Owe: $45,000
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
Keep reading »
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