Ralph Baxter Jr., a former CEO of Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who retired to West Virginia four years ago, will announce Tuesday that he is going to run for Congress in the 2018 midterm elections. News of Baxter's interest in running for public office emerged again earlier this year.

In a conversation with The American Lawyer, Baxter stopped short of formally announcing his candidacy, but did admit that he would be making a public proclamation of some sort at noon on Sept. 12 in front of Orrick's global operations center in Wheeling, West Virginia. A local newspaper reported late last week that Baxter would officially announce his candidacy on the Democratic Party ticket at Orrick's facility in Wheeling.

The operations center, which Orrick opened in 2002, was Baxter's brainchild and made him an innovator for a trend that took off during the past decade of large, global law firms moving certain administrative functions to low-cost areas. On Aug. 31, Baxter filed an official statement of candidacy with the U.S. Federal Election Commission that designated “Ralph Baxter for Congress” as his official political action committee as he prepares to take on Republican incumbent Rep. David McKinley, who has held his seat since January 2011.