FBI’s Robert Mueller III, the longest-serving FBI director since Hoover, is joining Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale & Dorr as a partner. Mueller had joined the FBI as its sixth Director one week prior to the 9/11 attacks and held his job under two presidents. During his legal career, from 1993-95, Mueller had been a partner at Hale and Dorr LLP, which later combined with Wilmer Cutler Pickering LLP to form today’s WilmerHale.
Robert Novick, co-managing partner of WilmerHale said, “Bob was the Director who managed the transition of the FBI into an agency that dealt not only with the hardest criminal justice matters but also with the most challenging national security issues, including cyber-security threats. He has remade the relationship between the FBI and the private sector to better protect the nation.”
Mueller currently holds a teaching appointment at Stanford and will serve as Executive-in-Residence for Georgetown University in Washington D.C., while spending time in WilmerHale’s West Coast offices. Mueller has served for more than 35 years in government service and law enforcement. He was a United States Marine Corps officer, an Assistant United States attorney in three different offices, the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California, the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Criminal Division, and of course, the Director of FBI.
Speaking on Mueller joining the law firm, Novick said, “Bob brings to the firm his broad range of experience as a career prosecutor, an ability to lead the most sensitive investigations, his steady hand in a crisis and unquestioned integrity. He will enhance and build on WilmerHale’s investigations and strategic counseling practices. We are so pleased to welcome Bob to the firm.”
Mueller earned his J.D. in 1973 from the University of Virginia School of Law where he served on the Law Review. He received an MA in international relations from New York University in 1967 and graduated from Princeton University with an AB in 1966.