For his first foray into private practice, Kenneth Wainstein has found a home at O’Melveny & Myers. Wainstein, who spent the past year as President George W. Bush's homeland security adviser, served as the first chief of the Justice Department’s National Security Division from 2006 to March 2008.
Today, O’Melveny announced that Wainstein will be joining the firm’s white collar defense and corporate investigations practice in its Washington office. He starts work on April 1.
Wainstein says he expects to be "very busy" given the "increasing demand" clients will have for white collar representation. “Where corporate America is involved in this economy, there’s a lot of scrutiny about how money is being handled," he says. "I’m anxious to get started."
Wainstein started at the Justice Department in 1989. Over the years, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in New York and Washington, director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, general counsel and chief of staff of the FBI, and U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia before being named assistant attorney general for the National Security Division. As U.S. attorney, Wainstein named current O'Melveny partner Steve Bunnell as the chief of the office's criminal division.
The two have now re-united at O'Melveny, and Bunnell says, “We're ecstatic for Ken to join us. There’s nobody on the market who’s close in our mind.”
Given Wainstein’s long time in government employment, Bunnell says he and the firm "will be working with Ken to understand the business aspects of working in a law firm.”
Wainstein declines to name other firms that he spoke with when looking for a new job, but says he primarily looked at firms where he knew people. In addition to Bunnell, Wainstein says he is close with Brian Boyle, another O’Melveny partner.
Between now and his April start date, Wainstein is at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, working in the area of counterterrorism policy.
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