Legal News

Biden Picks Former O?Melveny Partner Klain for Chief of Staff

By Dan Slater

Ron Klain, coming off his heroic depiction by Kevin Spacey in the HBO movie “Recount,” has nailed down his next gig: The former O’Melveny partner and chief of staff to VP Al Gore, will become Vice President-elect Joe Biden’s new chief of staff.

Here’s a report from the American Lawyer.

Klain (Georgetown, Harvard Law) has quite a resume: After graduating with Harvard Law’s Sears Prize for highest GPA, Klain (pictured) began his career clerking for former U.S. Supreme Court justice Byron “Whizzer” White in 1987. From 1989 to 1992, he served as chief counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he first worked with Biden. Klain became involved in Clinton’s 1992 presidential bid, which led to him being named associate counsel to President Clinton, where he directed judicial selection efforts and helped win the confirmation of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (Click here for a Law Blog Q&A with Klain.)

In 1999, according to AmLaw, tensions between Clinton and Gore loyalists caused Klain to leave public service for a partnership at O’Melveny. But he took a leave of absence from the firm a year later to serve as a senior adviser to Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. (In “Recount,” Spacey portrayed Klain in his role as general counsel of the Gore-Lieberman Florida recount committee.) Klain left O’Melveny in 2005 to become general counsel of Revolution, a Washington, D.C.-based investment firm founded by former AOL chairman Steve Case.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on November 14, 2008 (boomark / email).