Font Size: 
Convention Cattle Call for Legal Veeps
The American Lawyer
August 20, 2008
With the Democratic convention just days away and the GOP's following soon after, potential VP candidates are the fodder for round-the-clock media speculation. As pundits weigh the relative political merits of each potential second-in-command, eyeing regional flavor, age, and religious ties, The Am Law Daily is instead evaluating their legal resumes. The top contenders:
Evan Bayh has been linked to Sen. Obama as a potential vice president, despite his support of Hillary Clinton in the primaries. Bayh, 52, started his legal career at the University of Virginia's law school. He clerked for U.S. District Court Judge James Noland in Indiana before joining Hogan and Hartson in Washington for a year. Bayh then hopped to Birch Tabbert & Capehart to work with his father, former U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh, for another year before heading to Indianapolis law firm Bingham, Summers, Welsh and Spilman (now Bingham McHale). Between his tenure as governor and senator, in 1997-1998, Bayh was also a partner at Baker and Daniels.
Delaware senator and two-time presidential candidate Joe Biden, 65, got his law degree from Syracuse University and worked in private practice for three years before being elected to the U.S. Senate in 1972. Although he dropped out early in the race, Biden's 2008 presidential campaign got a boost from donations by law firm partners at Weitz & Luxenberg in New York and Cooney & Conway in Chicago. "Biden would have made the best president, and he will make the best vice president," says Perry Weitz, founding partner of Weitz & Luxenberg, which hosted a fundraiser for Biden's presidential bid in 2007. "He has the most foreign policy experience, and he is a very bright man who understands the issues in the Middle East."
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was an early endorser of Barack Obama. Like Obama, he's a Harvard Law School graduate. As a student he wrote articles critical of capital punishment in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Kaine, 50, practiced as a lawyer in Richmond for 17 years, working at Mezzulo & McCandlish (now McCandlish Holton) on civil rights cases, including a death penalty appeal.
Former Georgia senator and current chairman of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, Sam Nunn, 69, is once again seen as a dark horse Democratic VP nominee. He graduated from Emory's law school, and worked for four years as a partner at King & Spalding in Georgia after finishing 25 years in the U.S. Senate.
On the right, there are no shortage of legal VP possibilities:
Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, 52, is a close comrade of John McCain's. As a student at Alabama's Cumberland School of Law, he interned in the Florida state attorney's office. He found the third time was the charm after failing the Florida bar examination twice, and later joined his brother-in-law, J. Emory Wood, to form the Tampa firm of Wood and Crist, where he took on Florida Power to challenge an unpopular rate hike. "They were asking for a huge rate increase," recalled Wood, now a partner at Woods & Associates. "Charlie was not afraid to confront people or speak before a crowd." The Florida utility later reversed its rate increase.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, 47, is a graduate of the University of Minnesota law school. He worked at Rider, Bennett, Egan and Arundel in Minneapolis from 1989 to 1999, where he focused on education and employment law, serving as lead counsel for the Minneapolis public schools. Rider Bennett went out of business in May 2007, but several of the firm's legal alums have moved into the public sector under Pawlenty, including former partner Louise Dovre Bjorkman, now a Ramsey County judge, and Pawlenty's legal mentor J. Dennis O'Brien, now Minnesota public utilities commissioner. "He's very disciplined, working 30 hours a week while going to law school," said O'Brien, who hired Pawlenty when he was a law student to work at the now-defunct Lefevre Lefler and later brought him along to Rider Bennett. "When we worked together on the school district, there was a 10-year span when we didn't lose a single labor arbitration, civil service proceeding, discharge case or district court proceeding."
Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security, Congressman, and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, 62, graduated from Dickinson School of Law, and worked in private practice at the firm Gifford, Lay, Johnson and Ridge in Erie, Pa., from 1972 to 1982 before becoming assistant attorney general of Erie County. As governor, he received sizable donations from Philadelphia's Blank, Rome, Comisky and McCauley and employed Blank Rome partners Mark Holman and Carl Buchholz in the Department of Homeland Security. Holman also had been Ridge's chief of staff and campaign adviser when he was governor.
Finally, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law, but unlike most of his peers, he has no law firm experience. He founded private equity firm Bain Capital in 1984, and was CEO of management consulting company Bain & Company from 1992 to 1998. But Romney's ties to Boston law firms gave him a hand as a presidential candidate, when he raked in over $30,000 from donors at the Boston firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. Ropes & Gray, which handled work for Bain Capital, also represented Romney when his state residence was challenged before the Massachusetts Ballot Law Commission in 2002.
Other potential VPs may not have law degrees, but they still keep close ties to law firms. Republican Bobby Jindal, for example, looks to James Faircloth, partner at the Alexandria, La., firm Faircloth, Davidson, Vilar & Elliot, as his executive legal counsel. The firm was one of the top donors to his gubernatorial campaign. New Mexico Gov. and former Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson's top donors include Philadelphia law firm Cozen & O'Connor and Sutin, Thayer & Browne in Santa Fe.
While still other names may find their way into the running in the 11th hour, the days of uncertainty are dwindling. As the conventions approach, firms will be keeping an eye on their favorite legal alums until each party's list narrows to one.
