If you’re a former Supreme Court clerk and aspire to a career of traditional success — a Biglaw partnership, a tenured professorship at a leading law school, perhaps a federal judgeship — there’s ample precedent for that. I’ve written before about how SCOTUS clerkships are the golden tickets of the legal profession.
But what if you want to take a different path? In recent years, we’ve seen former SCOTUS clerks go off and do interesting, unusual things. Ashley Keller and Travis Lenkner, former clerks to Justice Kennedy, launched a litigation finance firm. Gretchen Rubin, a former clerk to Justice O’Connor, is now a bestselling author. (I’m currently reading — and enjoying — her latest book, Better Than Before (affiliate link).)
Today’s story falls in between these poles. It concerns a number of former Supreme Court clerks who have left well-feathered nests in Biglaw to do something more entrepreneurial, but still within the practice of law. And it reflects another notable trend: top lawyers leaving top law firms to launch or join boutiques (e.g., MoloLamken, Hueston Hennigan, Tensegrity Law Group, and many more).
Michael H. Park, a white-collar and securities litigator and former clerk to Justice Alito, is leaving Dechert, where he has been a partner resident in New York since 2012. He’ll be joining the high-powered boutique of Consovoy McCarthy as a name partner — the firm will become Consovoy McCarthy Park after his arrival — and launching the firm’s New York office. This comes on the heels of Patrick Strawbridge, a former Morgan Lewis partner and law clerk to Justice Thomas, joining Consovoy McCarthy and opening the Boston office.
As you can see from their bios, the lawyers at Consovoy McCarthy Park are an impressive group. Founding partner Will Consovoy clerked for Justice Thomas — the same Term that Park and Strawbridge clerked for the Court, as it turns out — and was a partner at Wiley Rein before breaking off to launch his own firm. Founding partner Thomas R. McCarthy clerked for Judge Sentelle of the D.C. Circuit and was also a Wiley partner. The duo left Wiley to launch the firm in the fall of 2014 (probably not a bad time to leave Wiley, which has experienced some restructuring and significant layoffs since then).
For a firm that’s less than a year old, Consovoy McCarthy Park is growing at an impressive clip. In addition to Consovoy, McCarthy, Park, and Strawbridge, the firm boasts counsel J. Michael Connolly, a former Tenth Circuit clerk, and executive director Suzzette Rodriguez Hurley DeMers, a former special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. (DeMers oversees operations of the firm, including professional development, marketing, IT, and human resources.)
I chatted recently with Park about his move from Dechert to Consovoy McCarthy. He cited his desire to work in an entrepreneurial environment, alongside old friends who also happen to be brilliant lawyers, on fascinating, headline-making cases. These include Evenwel v. Abbott, the “one person, one vote” case that the Supreme Court just agreed to hear, as well as high-profile lawsuits against Harvard and UNC Chapel Hill, alleging that the schools discriminate against Asian-American students in their undergraduate admissions policies. (Park is a prominent member of the Asian-American legal community, honored in 2013 as one of National Asian Pacific American Bar Association’s Best Lawyers Under 40.)
Will Consovoy and Tom McCarthy expressed enthusiasm for Park and Strawbridge. “We could not be more excited to add these two top-flight lawyers to our team,” Consovoy said. “Our goal has been to offer an alternative to the large firm staffing model and overhead structure. The kinds of complex legal problems our clients confront are not solved based on the number of attorneys assigned to the matter. It is the quality of the representation that counts.”
“Expanding our presence to Boston and New York will allow us to better serve existing clients and expand our practice while staying true to our model,” McCarthy said. “We believe the proposition we offer will be attractive to financial institutions facing novel regulatory and litigation challenges under Sarbanes Oxley, Dodd Frank, and FINRA.”
Congratulations to Michael Park and Patrick Strawbridge on their moves, and congratulations to Consovoy McCarthy on its new partners. Could the firm become the next great litigation boutique, up there with the likes of Bancroft, Willenken Wilson, Kellogg Huber, and Bartlit Beck? If prestige is fate, then Consovoy McCarthy Park may have a date with destiny.
