Obama’s former Supreme Court lawyer, Donald Verrilli, joins L.A. law firm

Former U.S. Solicitor Gen. Donald B. Verrilli Jr., who successfully defended President Obama’s healthcare plan before the Supreme Court, is joining the Los Angeles law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson.

Verrilli, 59, will lead the firm’s new Washington office.

“This firm has an extraordinary reputation, and they established a national powerhouse presence without having offices outside of California,” Verrilli said. “For me, this is an opportunity to launch and build an office that can attract and retain the best lawyers.”

Ronald Olson, a name partner, said the firm had long discussed opening a Washington office and saw an opportunity when Verrilli left the government.

“Don is a world-class lawyer. And our philosophy is to hire the best talent available,” Olson said. “His values and ours are in sync, and we believe he will help us extend our practice and our presence.”

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In June, Verrilli stepped down after a momentous five-year term as the government’s top lawyer before the Supreme Court. He had served in the Justice Department and the White House counsel’s office before the president asked him to step into the job after Elena Kagan was elevated to the high court.

He arrived in 2011 just as the massive legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act was reaching the doorstep of the high court. A coalition of two dozen Republican-led states, represented by President Bush’s solicitor general, Paul Clement, contended the entire law was unconstitutional because Congress did not have the authority to regulate healthcare and to require people to buy health insurance. And as soon became clear, the court’s five more-conservative, all-Republican appointees, essentially agreed with the challengers that the law stood on shaky ground.

While Verrilli argued that Congress could regulate healthcare under its power to regulate interstate commerce, he included a fallback argument that proved crucial. He maintained the so-called “mandate” to buy health insurance could be upheld as a tax. Under the law, people who could afford it would be assessed a small tax penalty if they failed to buy insurance.

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In June 2012, the high court upheld the healthcare law when Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. agreed its mandate was authorized by Congress’s power to impose taxes. The vote was 5-4. The same week, Verrilli and the Obama administration prevailed in a major immigration case when the justices blocked most of a controversial Arizona law that authorized the police to stop and arrest people who could not verify their citizenship.

A year later, Verrilli played a key role in the court’s decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, which had prohibited the federal government from recognizing same-sex unions as legally valid. The ruling prompted judges in several states to strike down the state bans on same-sex marriages, culminating in last year’s ruling declaring that gays and lesbians had a right to marry nationwide.

Prior to joining the government, Verrilli worked as a lawyer in Washington, specializing in telecommunications cases. In 2005, he won a major victory for the recording industry and Hollywood studios in the case of MGM Studios vs. Grokster, which extended the protections of copyright law to cover peer-to-peer filing sharing.

Munger, Tolles & Olson opened a San Francisco office in 1991 but has not had a significant presence on the East Coast.

“This is our first new office in 25 years,” Brad D. Brian, a co-managing partner, said in a statement. “Opening an office in Washington, D.C., with a lawyer like Don Verrilli is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

Verrilli brings with him two other Washington lawyers: Michael DeSanctis and Chad Golder, a former deputy attorney general at the Justice Department.

david.savage@latimes.com

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