M. Edward Whelan III left government in 2004 with a résumé that would be the envy of most: No. 2 lawyer in the U.S. Justice Department’s influential Office of Legal Counsel, senior lawyer at Verizon Corp., general counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia.

Rather than land in a lucrative partnership, he chose to take on the presidency of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit, and to pioneer the field of legal blogging.