Morrison & Foerster has tapped a lawyer with decades of experience at the U.S. Supreme Court to serve as managing partner of its office in Washington, D.C.

Joseph Palmore, co-chair of the firm's appellate and Supreme Court practice, has taken the reins of the Am Law 100 firm's office in the nation's capital. Palmore has served as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and assistant to the solicitor general for more than four years during the Obama administration.

“D.C. is a strategic priority for the firm as a whole, because the firm sees tremendous opportunities for growth here to support our national and international clients who have thorny regulatory issues or difficult government-facing issues,” Palmore said.

Palmore said the 960-lawyer firm has approximately 150 of its head count stationed in Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, having grown 25 percent larger in the last five years. Palmore, who also formerly served as counsel at the Federal Communications Commission, attributed Morrison & Foerster's growth in the region to “heavy recruitment” of individuals in government.

Palmore touted Morrison & Foerster's turning its privacy and cybersecurity practice into a crisis management national security practice and identified investigations, national security and government contracts as areas of law where the firm is looking to grow in the near-term.

Morrison & Foerster cracked the $1 billion gross revenue threshold in 2017, as profits per partner at the firm jumped more than 23 percent, to $1.736 million. Morrison & Foerster attributed its success last year to a strong crop of lateral partner hires bringing in new success.

The firm, which has its roots in San Francisco, is about to see its geographical footprint expand in D.C. Currently located on Pennsylvania Avenue, Morrison & Foerster's office in the city is poised to cross K Street and move into an 81,300-square-foot space in a little less than three years. Palmore said his firm is working with an architect on the building's design now, and Morrison & Foerster expects to use the top four floors of the building.

Palmore said Morrison & Foerster's move will formally take place in January 2021—right around the time of the next presidential inauguration. He offered no predictions on whether another U.S. Supreme Court vacancy could materialize before that inauguration but noted that he's seen Ginsburg a couple of times within the past year and said she seems to be in good health.

“She's incredibly fit and I don't think she's going anywhere,” Palmore said of the 85-year-old justice, who celebrated a birthday last month.

President Donald Trump, however, has targeted Ginsburg. After the justice publicly criticized his 2016 presidential campaign, then-candidate Trump tweeted in July 2016 that Ginsburg's “mind is shot” and added “resign!” (Ginsburg apologized, but after Trump's election later that year, she broke out some notable neckwear.)

If Trump leaves the White House before Ginsburg leaves the bench, several high-ranking former Obama administration officials who call Morrison & Foerster home may eye a return to public service. Asked about the possibility that several lawyers currently with the firm could rejoin the federal government when Morrison & Foerster moves into its new offices in 2021, Palmore did not express any potential concern about losing top talent.

“That's life in the D.C. market,” he said.