Andrew Weissmann of Jenner & Block (courtesy photo)

Andrew Weissmann, a former U.S. Justice Department official and a top member of Robert Mueller's special counsel team, is returning to Jenner & Block as co-chairman of the firm's investigations, compliance and defense practice.

Weissmann had a lead role in winning convictions against Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates during the Mueller probe. His past prosecutorial targets have included Enron executives and the Genovese crime family, among others.

He will rejoin the firm on July 1 in New York, the firm said, filling a practice leadership role that has been occupied by Katya Jestin, a former Weissmann protege from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn. Jestin became firmwide co-managing partner at Jenner & Block earlier this year.

Now an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law, Weissmann said before relaunching his private practice he has to grade student papers and deliver a book manuscript.

The book, first reported last July, will encompass his time working with Mueller to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Weissmann, who was a partner at Jenner & Block from 2006 to 2011, described his return as a homecoming. He contrasted the ease of rejoining the firm to his experience the first time he left government service, which involved an exhaustive search that matched his Type A personality.

"To me, this was a no-brainer. I quickly came to the realization that I wanted to go home," Weissmann said, adding that he had been a partner with a lot of the people he had spoken with during the interview process. "It was more of a reunion than an interview process."

Like other Jenner & Block partners cycling between public service and private practice, Weissmann returned to government service in 2011 after his first stint at the firm. Two years later he became chief of the Justice Department's fraud section, overseeing investigations that included probes into Odebrecht and Braskem, two Brazilian companies that paid $3.5 billion in order to resolve what DOJ called the "largest foreign bribery case in history," and Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal. He joined Mueller's team in 2017.

With the COVID-19 pandemic ongoing, Weissmann said he anticipates that when he returns to Jenner & Block in midsummer, his practice will focus mainly on corporate matters as opposed to individual cases. He noted that in the Volkswagen case, the company itself pleaded guilty while individual executives were also charged with crimes. A lot of the work that can be done in a corporate case, such as reading documents or interviewing certain witnesses and experts, is easier done remotely than work for an individual defendant, Weissmann said.

A firm spokeswoman said Jestin will continue to work with clients in the investigations practice but will also be focusing more closely on her co-managing partner duties, which she splits with Randy Mehrberg. Jestin and Weissmann worked together at U.S. Attorney's Office in the Eastern District of New York, where Weissmann served as the chief of the criminal division.

"I am thrilled to welcome back my friend and colleague," Jestin said in a press release. "I know of no more skilled trial lawyer or tenacious investigator. His creative thinking and unparalleled experience in corporate compliance and in FCPA investigations will prove invaluable to our clients."

The other co-chairs of Jenner & Block's investigations practice are Anthony Barkow in New York, Christine Braamskamp in London and Reid Schar in Chicago.

Weissmann's decision to join Jenner & Block comes as the firm saw its top-line revenue grow by 1.5% to $448 million in 2019, reversing four years of sliding revenues. In March, Thomas Perrelli, a former associate U.S. attorney general and a co-chairman of Jenner & Block's government controversies and public policy litigation practice, became the firm's newest chairman.

Weissmann said the first partner he ever talked to at Jenner & Block was Perrelli.

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