As the Obama presidency enters its final year, high-level administration officials seeking new homes at big firms dominate our list of star laterals. The attorney general left for private practice; so did top staffers at the fraud, antitrust and criminal divisions, a senior adviser to the U.S. mission to the United Nations and the general counsel of the National Security Agency. Meanwhile, three household names exited Am Law 200 firms for small shops, and one of the profession’s best-known advocates for activist investors switched sides, moving to Morgan Stanley. The lesson? In law as in life, change is the only constant.

Eric Holder Jr.
Moved to: Covington
From: U.S. Department of Justice
The big prize in the year’s lateral sweepstakes goes to Covington. After six years as attorney general, Holder becomes a litigation partner there, focusing on white-collar defense, public policy and complex international matters. Holder’s destination wasn’t much of a surprise: He had been a partner at Covington for eight years before stepping into the Justice Department’s top job, and when the firm moved to new digs in 2014, it kept an 11th-floor corner office vacant for him. “People always had laughed and wondered who they’re saving the office for,” a Covington partner who’d served under Holder at the DOJ told The National Law Journal. As for Holder, he says he’ll stay put in that 11th-floor office: “I think this is my last stop,” he said. “I’m here at Covington until I decide I’m not going to be a lawyer anymore.”

Cyrus Amir-Mokri
Moved to: JPMorgan Chase
From: Skadden
A former assistant secretary for financial institutions at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Amir-Mokri becomes general counsel of JPMorgan Chase’s corporate and investment bank division, based in New York. Amir-Mokri’s résumé also includes a two-year stint as senior legal and policy adviser to the chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

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