Legal News

Latham Hearts the DOJ; Alice Fisher to Rejoin Firm

By Dan Slater

Latham & Watkins seems to be the DOJ’s home away from home.

Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher at a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2006. (AP/ Stephen J. Boitano)

The Legal Times reports that, after three years as chief of the DOJ’s criminal division, Alice Fisher, who resigned from the post in May, will rejoin her old firm, Latham & Watkins. The former assistant AG will work in the firm’s litigation department and as a global co-chair of the white-collar and government investigations practice group.

Fisher was previously a partner with Latham from 2003 to 2005 and for a brief period in 2001. Both times she left the firm, she went to work in the Justice Department’s criminal division. Back at Latham, we imagine she’ll coordinate some cases with Enron prosecutors Sean Berkowitz and Kathy Ruemmler. Berkowitz joined Latham’s Chicago office in November of 2006. Ruemmler, who’s based in D.C., followed him a few months later.

Just a few months into her stint in the DOJ, Fisher (Columbus School of Law at Catholic University, ‘92), then 38 years old, made a name for herself by helming the widest-ranging congressional corruption investigation in more than two decades: the probe of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others. (Click here for a 2006 WSJ profile of Fisher.)

Fisher chaired the National Procurement Fraud Task Force, which was established by the Justice Department in 2006 to prevent and combat fraud in government contracting. She also supervised the Medicare Fraud Strike Force and the Enron Task Force and served as a member of President Bush’s Corporate Fraud Task Force.

“I’m going to miss public service a lot,” Fisher says. “I was the head of the criminal division for three years, which is longer than most people stay in that job. Most stay for about 18 months or two years. I stayed as long as I could and as long as was appropriate.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on September 10, 2008 (boomark / email).