Douglas Greenburg of Latham & Watkins (Courtesy photo) Douglas Greenburg of Latham & Watkins. (Courtesy photo)

Douglas Greenburg is Latham & Watkins' next white-collar defense and investigations chair, taking over for Kathryn Ruemmler, who left the firm Friday for Goldman Sachs.

Greenburg, the chair of Latham's Washington, D.C., litigation and trial department, will lead the practice group, which has around 44 partners, 14 counsel and 60 associates assigned to it full-time, he said.

As a part of that practice, Latham defends high-profile clients such as Microsoft, which is currently fighting with Amazon over a $10 billion cloud-computing contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.

"Most of the stuff I do is not something we can talk about," said Greenburg, who gives his clients compliance guidance and represents them in government investigations. Both he and Ruemmler worked together when their client, Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp., was investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In taking over for Ruemmler, who has run the practice group since 2014, Greenburg emphasized both recruiting and developing talent in Latham's associate ranks as priorities.

But that's become harder to do in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in which law firms have sent the majority of their workforce home to work remotely. Greenburg said he likes working and talking to people in an office setting.

"In the short term, it's a real issue," Greenburg said. "That being said, we are making a lot of effort to stay connected at the partner level and the associate level. Using our technology and video capabilities to have video calls, video meetings … it's even more important in this environment than normal, because you don't have that incidental but very important contact you might have."

Ruemmler is in a similar situation. When she starts Monday as Goldman Sachs' next global head of regulatory affairs, she'll do so from her dining room table.

Greenburg and Ruemmler said they've only seen partial slowdowns in their white-collar defense work. The government is still pursuing investigations, but court action has stopped and deadlines have been extended.

Additionally, the spread of the coronavirus—and the social distancing guidelines and stay-at-home orders that have followed—have made it impossible for lawyers like Greenburg and Ruemmler to interview witnesses in person. It's hard to get a feel for a witness' body language and tone through a video conference call.

"That will be a significant challenge for lawyers, to adapt to those kinds of interviews over video conference," Ruemmler said.

At the same time, the partial slowdown also gives Greenburg and his team an opportunity to discuss strategic planning and have "thoughtful get-togethers that you always want to have, but you're always competing with in the day-to-day," he said.

Greenburg's legal career began in 1993, when he joined Winston & Strawn in Chicago. Over the next 12 years, he periodically left Winston to work in the federal government, first in the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission's enforcement division and then as a staff member of the 9/11 Commission, where he investigated terrorism financing. He joined Latham's D.C. office in 2005.

Ruemmler began her legal career at Latham, and, similar to Greenburg, periodically left in order to serve in the federal government. She served as President Barack Obama's White House counsel from 2011 to 2014, and was once floated as a possible successor to Eric Holder as U.S. attorney general. Ruemmler returned to Latham in 2014 and declined being considered as the nation's top law enforcement official.

Working at Goldman Sachs, a longstanding Latham client, was an opportunity to try something new, Ruemmler said.

"It will be a change in my relationship with Latham, but it will not be an end to my relationship with Latham," she said.

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