In remarks at an American Bar Foundation event in Austin, TX, Jamie Gorelick, a WilmerHale partner, praised public servants, especially government lawyers, who provide needed services and defend the Constitution and rule of law.
“One cannot live in our current times and fail to appreciate how important our public servants are to the functioning of our society,” said Ms. Gorelick, the keynote speaker at the Feb. 15, 2020 ABF Fellow’s Award Banquet where she was awarded the 2020 Fellows’ Outstanding Service Award.
“In each of my government jobs, and in private practice — and as a citizen — I have had lots of opportunities to see public servants, especially lawyers, in action,” said Ms. Gorelick, who served as deputy attorney general and Defense Department general counsel during the Clinton administration.”
“I have watched them act with their public responsibilities uppermost in their minds,” said Ms. Gorelick, who chairs WilmerHale’s Regulatory and Government Affairs Department and co-chairs the Crisis Management and Strategic Response Practice. “I have seen some of them struggle, on occasion, with having to abide by the choices being made by an administration with which they might disagree – including ones in which I was serving.
“They take an oath, in one form or another, to protect and help all of us by doing their jobs — and resisting pressures that are inconsistent with those responsibilities, whether they come from politicians, critics in the media, advocacy organizations or otherwise,” Ms. Gorelick said.