Whatever the political allegiances and demographic shifts that aligned Tuesday to elect G. Douglas Jones as Alabama's first Democratic U.S. senator in two decades, one thing is certain.

Big Law threw its support behind Jones, 63, a founder of Birmingham, Alabama-based Jones & Hawley, who beat Republican candidate Roy Moore in a special election for the Senate seat once held by current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions III.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings ($10,600); Maynard Cooper & Gale ($7,750); Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz ($5,525); and Adams and Reese ($3,800) are among Jones' top 20 campaign donors, according to data gathered by The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets website, which notes that lawyers and law firms were the largest contributors to Jones with a collective $140,233. That contrasts with the $156,475 that the legal industry gave to Moore, a former judge accused of sexual misconduct by nine women.

OpenSecrets states that Jones' campaign raised nearly $11.6 million during the special election cycle, while Moore's campaign coffers tapped out at $5.2 million. Other top legal donors to Jones include Gadsden, Alabama-based Inzer, Haney, McWhorter & Haney ($5,400); Birmingham's Price Armstrong ($5,400); Birmingham's J. Steven Mobley Law Offices ($5,200); the New York City Law Department ($5,050); and Huntsville, Alabama-based Conchin, Cloud & Cole ($3,950), according to OpenSecrets.

While lawyers no longer dominate Congress in the numbers they once did, Jones is poised to become the latest attorney to take his seat in the Senate.

“Doug has an uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time,” said Gregory Hawley, a veteran litigator and fellow name partner at Jones & Hawley in a story by The New York Times about Jones' surprise victory over Moore. Hawley, who did not immediately return a request for comment, compared his colleague to another famous Alabamian: Forrest Gump.

Jones formed Jones & Hawley in 2013 after serving as a partner at Alabama firms Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, which closed its doors in 2014 and is now known as Haskell Slaughter & Gallion, and Whatley, Drake & Kallas. Jones was a partner at the latter in October 2007 when he testified before the House of Representatives about selective prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice during the second Bush administration. (At the time, Jones was representing ex-Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat convicted on corruption charges.)

Jones began his legal career in 1979 as staff counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., before working as a federal prosecutor in Alabama. From 1984 to 1997, Jones was a solo practitioner and then a name partner at Birmingham's Jones, Bowron & Selden. In 1997, the Clinton administration nominated Jones to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, a role that he would hold for four years.

Jones made a name for himself in 2000 after bringing charges against Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry—both of whom were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan—for their roles in the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham. (Both defendants were convicted in 2002.) But Jones' passion for social justice began years before.

“During my second year in law school, I cut a few classes to watch a young Bill Baxley, Alabama's attorney general, prosecute the first 16th Street Baptist Church bombing trial,” wrote Jones on his campaign's website. “That was 1977—the first time I saw real, inspiring change in the cards for Alabama.”

Jones has long considered Baxley, a longtime nemesis of the KKK, one of his heroes. Baxley's courtroom arguments, Jones said in a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, were “one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The history, the power, that the law can change things for good, that public service lawyers can have an effect on the world around you.”

Moore, who at the time of this story had yet to concede Tuesday's election, saw Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles emerge as the largest contributor to his Senate campaign, with $104,000 in donations, according to OpenSecrets. The Montgomery, Alabama-based plaintiffs firm was the only legal services outfit among Moore's top 20 donors.

In August, AL.com reported that Beasley Allen chairman and founder Jere Beasley—himself a former Democratic lieutenant governor in Alabama—had encouraged his firm's employees to support Moore. “Roy Moore is the only candidate who will stand up to [special interests] and who will be good for our clients' interests,” Beasley wrote in one missive obtained by AL.com.

The local news outlet reported that it was unusual for a trial lawyer like Beasley to support a Republican candidate for higher office, but in subsequent reports noted that Beasley Allen had a somewhat fraught relationship with Luther Strange III, a former Bradley Arant partner who lost to Moore in Alabama's Republican primary in September.

Strange, as Alabama's newly-installed attorney general in 2011, fired Beasley Allen from its role representing the state in a suit against energy giant BP plc over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella.

Whatever the political allegiances and demographic shifts that aligned Tuesday to elect G. Douglas Jones as Alabama's first Democratic U.S. senator in two decades, one thing is certain.

Big Law threw its support behind Jones, 63, a founder of Birmingham, Alabama-based Jones & Hawley, who beat Republican candidate Roy Moore in a special election for the Senate seat once held by current U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions III.

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings ($10,600); Maynard Cooper & Gale ($7,750); Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz ($5,525); and Adams and Reese ($3,800) are among Jones' top 20 campaign donors, according to data gathered by The Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets website, which notes that lawyers and law firms were the largest contributors to Jones with a collective $140,233. That contrasts with the $156,475 that the legal industry gave to Moore, a former judge accused of sexual misconduct by nine women.

OpenSecrets states that Jones' campaign raised nearly $11.6 million during the special election cycle, while Moore's campaign coffers tapped out at $5.2 million. Other top legal donors to Jones include Gadsden, Alabama-based Inzer, Haney, McWhorter & Haney ($5,400); Birmingham's Price Armstrong ($5,400); Birmingham's J. Steven Mobley Law Offices ($5,200); the New York City Law Department ($5,050); and Huntsville, Alabama-based Conchin, Cloud & Cole ($3,950), according to OpenSecrets.

While lawyers no longer dominate Congress in the numbers they once did, Jones is poised to become the latest attorney to take his seat in the Senate.

“Doug has an uncanny ability to be at the right place at the right time,” said Gregory Hawley, a veteran litigator and fellow name partner at Jones & Hawley in a story by The New York Times about Jones' surprise victory over Moore. Hawley, who did not immediately return a request for comment, compared his colleague to another famous Alabamian: Forrest Gump.

Jones formed Jones & Hawley in 2013 after serving as a partner at Alabama firms Haskell Slaughter Young & Rediker, which closed its doors in 2014 and is now known as Haskell Slaughter & Gallion, and Whatley, Drake & Kallas. Jones was a partner at the latter in October 2007 when he testified before the House of Representatives about selective prosecution by the U.S. Department of Justice during the second Bush administration. (At the time, Jones was representing ex-Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman, a Democrat convicted on corruption charges.)

Jones began his legal career in 1979 as staff counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., before working as a federal prosecutor in Alabama. From 1984 to 1997, Jones was a solo practitioner and then a name partner at Birmingham's Jones, Bowron & Selden. In 1997, the Clinton administration nominated Jones to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, a role that he would hold for four years.

Jones made a name for himself in 2000 after bringing charges against Thomas Edwin Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry—both of whom were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan—for their roles in the 1963 bombing of a black church in Birmingham. (Both defendants were convicted in 2002.) But Jones' passion for social justice began years before.

“During my second year in law school, I cut a few classes to watch a young Bill Baxley, Alabama's attorney general, prosecute the first 16th Street Baptist Church bombing trial,” wrote Jones on his campaign's website. “That was 1977—the first time I saw real, inspiring change in the cards for Alabama.”

Jones has long considered Baxley, a longtime nemesis of the KKK, one of his heroes. Baxley's courtroom arguments, Jones said in a 2013 interview with the Los Angeles Times, were “one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The history, the power, that the law can change things for good, that public service lawyers can have an effect on the world around you.”

Moore, who at the time of this story had yet to concede Tuesday's election, saw Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles emerge as the largest contributor to his Senate campaign, with $104,000 in donations, according to OpenSecrets. The Montgomery, Alabama-based plaintiffs firm was the only legal services outfit among Moore's top 20 donors.

In August, AL.com reported that Beasley Allen chairman and founder Jere Beasley—himself a former Democratic lieutenant governor in Alabama—had encouraged his firm's employees to support Moore. “Roy Moore is the only candidate who will stand up to [special interests] and who will be good for our clients' interests,” Beasley wrote in one missive obtained by AL.com.

The local news outlet reported that it was unusual for a trial lawyer like Beasley to support a Republican candidate for higher office, but in subsequent reports noted that Beasley Allen had a somewhat fraught relationship with Luther Strange III, a former Bradley Arant partner who lost to Moore in Alabama's Republican primary in September.

Strange, as Alabama's newly-installed attorney general in 2011, fired Beasley Allen from its role representing the state in a suit against energy giant BP plc over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Additional reporting by Mike Scarcella.