Harriet Miers: a Counselor to Clients & Presidents

Harriet Miers: A Counselor to Clients & Presidents – Updated

By Mark Curriden

(Dec. 6, 2016) – Harriet Miers is the epitome Born and raised in Dallas, Miers attended public of what it means to be a lawyer. She zealously schools. She studied math in college and planned advocates for her clients. She to be a teacher. When her father cherishes the rule of law. suffered a stroke, the family faced serious legal issues. She fought to preserve the sacrosanct relationship between “A lawyer stepped forward to help lawyers and their clients. us get through the tough times,” She championed the need for she said. “I admired him greatly improved legal services for the and decided then that I really poor. She shattered numerous wanted to be a lawyer.” glass ceilings for women lawyers During her second year at the in Texas, including becoming SMU Dedman School of Law, the first women to lead a large, Miers worked as a summer full service law firm. associate in the law offices of Then, there were those years legendary plaintiff’s lawyers not long ago when Miers stepped away from a Melvin Belli and Robert Leif. lucrative partnership at a large law firm to take “It was an amazing experience,” she said. a position in the federal government – policy “Belli asked me to help write an article on a adviser and later chief legal counsel to the no-fault divorce law that had just passed in President of the United States. California. It was a lot of fun.” For Miers, law is not simply a business – it is a After graduating from SMU Dedman in 1970, noble profession. Miers clerked for two years for Chief Judge “Lawyers especially have an obligation to give Joe Estes of the U.S. District Court in Northern back to society, to defend the rule of law, to work District of Texas. to improve our legal system, and to take steps to “There were very few women in law school ensure that all of our citizens, including the most and very few law firms offering lawyer jobs to vulnerable among us, have access to the justice women,” she said. “Judge Estes was like a system,” she said. second father to me. He called law firms>

SERVING BUSINESS LAWYERS IN TEXAS recommending > me for a position. He was in which tens or even hundreds of millions of surprised at the hesitancy of firms to hire dollars were at stake. a woman.” Miers, who is 71, has demonstrated her Locke Purnell said “yes,” but hired Miers as a commitment to pro bono throughout her career lawyer in its corporate M&A section, not litigation by tackling various projects and cases. In the late where she wanted to be. Fortunately, her big 1990s, she represented an African woman and break came quickly. her child in an asylum petition.

Six months after being The woman’s husband, hired, a Locke Purnell who was a white U.S. trial lawyer who practiced citizen, tried to have her in Texas state courts and her child deported was facing a trial in after the couple divorced. federal court. Because the child was bi-racial, the mother “He came to my office and knew she would be said he knew that I knew unwelcomed in her federal procedure and homeland and likely rules from clerking with targeted for persecution. Judge Estes and that I knew how things worked around the federal court,” she said. “He asked if Miers said the facts in the case were I would help him with the litigation. I jumped at heartbreaking, but the case fortunately ended the opportunity.” well, as the mother was granted asylum.

Miers’ career skyrocketed. Locke Purnell voted Finally, let’s not forget about Miers’ most famous her into the partnership in 1978, making her the client: President George W. Bush. first woman to be a partner at a major Dallas law Miers first served as general counsel for the firm. In 1986, the Dallas Bar Association voted transition team when Bush was elected governor Miers its first woman president. Six years later, of Texas in 1994. In 2000, she represented Bush she became the first woman to be president of in a federal lawsuit claiming that Bush and his the State Bar of Texas. And she served two years vice presidential running mate, Dick Cheney, on the Dallas City Council. could not run on the same presidential ticket In 1996, Locke Purnell made Miers the first because they were from the same state. The case woman to lead a major Texas law firm. As the was dismissed. firm’s president, she engineered its merger In 2001, Miers left the law firm to move to with Houston-based Liddell Sapp. Washington, D.C., to serve as assistant to the During her 45-year career, Miers successfully president and later as deputy chief of staff represented scores of businesses, including for policy. > Microsoft and Disney, in huge business disputes

SERVING BUSINESS LAWYERS IN TEXAS President Bush, who once described Miers as a “Justice Harriet Miers,” former Supreme Court “pit bull in size six shoes,” promoted the Dallas Justice Sandra Day O’Connor told me once in an lawyer to White House Counsel in 2005 – a interview, “she would have added a humbleness position she held for two years. She was only the and a common sense that is greatly needed on second woman in history to serve in the position. the Court.”

At a CLE program at SMU Dedman School of “Working for the United States and the Law in 2016, Miers said there were three key president is a remarkable experience,” she said. elements that have changed the practice of law “This nation does amazing things around the during her career. world to make a difference and I got to see that first hand from the White House. “The first is technology,” she said. “We thought we had seen it all when we first saw the fax “It is the pinnacle of anyone’s career to be the machine. Now, we talk in terms of search legal adviser to the president of the United algorithms and electronic discovery.” States,” she said. Miers said lawyers went from representing In 2005, President Bush nominated Miers to be clients in Dallas and North Texas to representing an associate justice on the Supreme Court. them statewide, then across the southwest “In selecting a nominee, I’ve sought to find an and nationwide. American of grace, judgment and unwavering “Now, we are all doing international work – or at devotion to the Constitution and laws of our least wanting to do more international law and country,” President Bush said. “Harriet Miers is wondering why we are not,” she said. just such a person. I’ve known Harriet Miers for more than a decade. I know her heart. I know Finally, there is the issue of diversity. her character.” “Used to be, when I walked into a room for a Some political leaders on the far left and the far meeting, or a deposition or a court hearing, all right criticized Miers’ nomination, pointing out the other participants were male,” said Miers, that she had never served as a judge before. who pointed out that it is much different today But those politicians apparently were ignorant with much greater gender and ethnic diversity. of a few other Supreme Court justices – Chief Justice John Marshall, Justice John Marshall “Now, when I walk into the room and look Harlan, Chief Justice Earl Warren and Chief Justice around, all of the lawyers are young,” she said, William Rehnquist, to name a few – who had not causing the room to erupt into laughter. been trial or appellate court judges. Please visit www.lionsofthetexasbar.net for more Sadly, Miers withdrew as a candidate after a stories on the Lions of the Texas Bar. month, but she still says it was “an extraordinary Also, visit www.texaslawbook.net for more articles experience.” on business law in Texas.

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