Foley Hoag has hired former US special counsel Hampton Dellinger as a partner in its Washington DC office.
Dellinger was previously head of the US Office of Special Counsel before being fired by president Donald Trump in February amid sweeping changes in the US capital. Dellinger will join Foley Hoag’s litigation department, bringing with him decades of experience across government and private practice roles on bet-the-company trial, appellate, investigation and regulatory matters.
His expertise spans the energy, healthcare, life sciences, education and high-tech industries and his practice covers regulatory affairs, state attorney general investigations, risk and compliance assessments and antitrust litigation.
Jim Bucking, managing partner at Foley Hoag, said: “[Dellinger’s] experience at the highest levels of government will give our clients an invaluable resource for their most important and complex disputes.”
Dellinger spent a year as special counsel despite being appointed for a five-year term by then president Joe Biden. Dellinger filed a law suit against the Trump administration in a bid to prevent his removal from office and initially won a temporary restraining order and summary judgment, but the DC Circuit court sided with Trump on appeal.
The Office of the Special Counsel is an independent federal agency responsible for deterring government misconduct and protecting whistleblowers, as well as enforcing Hatch Act prohibitions on political activity by public sector workers.
Prior to that role, Dellinger was an assistant attorney general and head of the Office of Legal Policy at the Department of Justice for just under two years, having briefly ran his own independent law firm following his exit from Boies Schiller Flexner, where he was a partner for more than seven years. He was also formerly a partner at Robinson Bradshaw & Hinson and at legacy firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.
Prior to that he was chief legal counsel in the North Carolina governor’s office and deputy attorney general in the North Carolina Department of Justice, having started out in private practice at WilmerHale after a year clerking in the US Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Dellinger said: “I’m happy to be returning to private practice and honoured to be joining Foley Hoag. I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues to grow the firm’s litigation and investigations practices.”
His arrival follows the hiring of former White House counsel Greg Craig, who joined the firm in Washington DC as a senior counsel back in May.
Other firms recently hiring former government lawyers include Baker McKenzie, which in July hired two high-ranking DoJ officials – former US deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein and former assistant director Tim Finley. Latham & Watkins also boosted its antitrust and competition bench in Washington with the hire of former deputy assistant attorney general Andrew Forman in June.
Email your news and story ideas to: [email protected]
