Dane Butswinkas of Williams & Connolly. (Courtesy photo)

Williams & Connolly said Wednesday that its former chairman, Dane Butswinkas, will “resume practicing law with the firm this month” after taking over to lead Tesla's legal department just two months ago.

Butswinkas was named Tesla's general counsel in December, during a period of intense regulatory scrutiny for the automobile and technology company, though he didn't formally sever ties to the law firm. He replaced Todd Maron, who had been Tesla's general counsel since 2013.

Jonathan Chang, a former Latham & Watkins lawyer who was most recently vice president for legal at Tesla, is now taking over as general counsel, the company said. Chang, 40, has been at Tesla for eight years and first began advising the company while at Latham in 2006.

“If home is where the heart is, then Williams & Connolly has always been my home,” Butswinkas said in a statement shared by the firm early Wednesday. “I'm grateful to the firm for its continuous support, and I now look forward to resuming my trial practice with my colleagues, clients, and long-time friends.”    

A source familiar with Butswinkas' tenure at Tesla said his departure was related to a desire to return to his practice and family in Washington, D.C., and to a “cultural” mismatch with the company.

Joseph Petrosinelli, who became chairman of Williams & Connolly's executive committee when Butswinkas headed to Tesla, praised Butswinkas as “an integral part of our Williams & Connolly family.”

“We are delighted that Dane is resuming practice with us on a full-time basis,” Petrosinelli said in a statement.  

Butswinkas, who has practiced at Williams & Connolly for 30 years and was serving as co-chairman of the firm's commercial litigation and financial services and banking groups last year, had joined Tesla in the wake of a settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over a series of tweets by CEO Elon Musk claiming he secured funding to take Tesla private at $420 a share.

On Tuesday Musk was again raising eyebrows on Twitter with a vow that Tesla would produce around 500,000 cars in 2019, only to clarify later that he “Meant to say annualized production rate at end of 2019 probably around 500k, ie 10k cars/week. Deliveries for year still estimated to be about 400k. annualized rate of half a million vehicles by the end of this year.”

Williams & Connolly, which was founded in 1967 by Edward Bennett Williams and Paul Connolly, has undergone several changes in recent months. Alongside Petrosinelli's new leadership of the more than 300 lawyers at Williams & Connolly, the firm also announced last month that Lisa Blatt was returning to the firm to take over the high-profile U.S. Supreme Court and appellate practice from Kannon Shanmugam, who left for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison.

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