Attorney General Eric Holder’s former Deputy Chief of Staff, Jim Garland, is set to return to Covington & Burling LLP this week.
Garland announced in August that he would be leaving the Justice Department to return to private practice.
At the Justice Department, Garland handled antitrust issues, state and local law enforcement, and all criminal matters not related to national security. He served as the Attorney General’s point man for the department response to the economic crisis, advised Holder about when the federal government should seek the death penalty, and worked on the newly created Intellectual Property Enforcement Task Force.
Full release from the firm after the jump. – LN
Senior Department of Justice Official Returns to Covington
WASHINGTON, DC, September 29, 2010 — Covington & Burling LLP is pleased to announce that, after serving at the U.S. Department of Justice as Deputy Chief of Staff and Counselor to the Attorney General, former Covington partner Jim Garland will return to the firm on October 1. His practice will focus on complex commercial litigation, including matters involving antitrust claims and financial fraud, as well as matters at the intersection of civil litigation and criminal enforcement.
At the Justice Department, Mr. Garland advised Attorney General Eric Holder on a range of enforcement issues, with an emphasis on the Department’s response to the economic crisis. He was involved from the inception with President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force and also played a significant role in the Department’s newly formed Intellectual Property Enforcement Task Force. In each of these roles, and others, he worked closely with senior officials at Main Justice, the U.S. Attorneys’ offices, other federal, state, and local enforcement agencies, and the FBI.
Before he left Covington to join the Department of Justice, Mr. Garland litigated antitrust, business tort, and complex contract cases. He also represented both corporate and individual clients in large-scale, multi-party Justice Department investigations and related regulatory enforcement actions.
“Jim’s experience at DOJ, where he played an integral role in much of the Department’s work in fighting financial fraud, enforcing antitrust laws and protecting intellectual property, placed him in the midst of a wide array of difficult and complex issues,” said Timothy Hester, chair of the firm’s management committee. “We were proud to see him tapped by the Attorney General for such an important position, and we are delighted to welcome him back to the partnership.”
Mr. Garland commented: “I am thrilled to be returning to Covington, where I look forward to building upon my recent Justice Department experience to serve clients facing civil litigation, criminal investigations, and related regulatory enforcement actions. Covington’s deep substantive expertise and talented bench of commercial and white collar litigators make the firm ideally suited to handle such multidimensional matters.”
Mr. Garland, who clerked for the Honorable R. Guy Cole, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, earned his law degree from the University of Virginia, where he was elected to the Order of the Coif. He is a graduate of Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs.
