Sally Yates (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates joined King & Spalding as a partner on Tuesday, returning to the Atlanta-based firm where she started her legal career almost 30 years ago.

Yates, who catapulted to national prominence when she was fired by President Donald Trump in January 2017, said she will be spearheading independent investigations for corporations, universities and other organizations with “particularly challenging or vexing issues.”

That could involve #MeToo workplace allegations, high-level corporate misconduct or sports controversies like pro-football's Deflategate, Yates said, particularly in situations where “the allegations are egregious and the public and press are involved.”

Yates left King & Spalding in 1989 for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia, where she became U.S. attorney in 2010. In 2015, after a career prosecuting public corruption and fraud cases, she was appointed U.S. deputy attorney general under the Obama administration.

Yates' tenure as acting attorney general in the Trump administration lasted just 10 days. The president fired her on Jan. 30, 2017, only hours after she refused to defend his travel ban on immigrants from predominantly Muslim countries, calling it unenforceable.

As acting AG, Yates also warned the Trump administration that she believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled administration officials about his communications with the Russian ambassador and was potentially vulnerable to blackmail.

Since she was fired, Yates has been teaching at Georgetown University Law Center and working on criminal justice reform issues—amid intense speculation over what she would do next.

Independent investigations is a separate area from King & Spalding's work defending companies or other organizations in government investigations. A recent example, Yates said, would be the investigation of Uber last year by Covington & Burling's Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general.

The firm could be retained by the organization itself or its board, she added.

“It's really important to have the credibility of someone from outside to investigate it and be willing to call it whichever way it should be,” said Yates, who will work within King & Spalding's government investigations and special matters practice.

No Political Plans

Democrats, inspired by Yates' defiance of the president, have been encouraging her to run for governor of her home state of Georgia since her departure from the DOJ last year.

But Yates said she wanted to be a lawyer, not a politician. “I've spent the last 27 years of my life in public service, but I've never felt drawn to public office,” she said.

“What I really miss is being a practicing lawyer,” Yates said she learned during her hiatus. “I know other people sort of have political ambitions for me—but for me, I'm a lawyer. … I wanted to get back to some of the day-to-day practice of law.”

The head of the firm's special matters practice, Wick Sollers, said in a statement that “general counsels, CEOs and boards of directors will welcome [Yates'] insight, especially if they need an independent counsel who can navigate a matter with civil, criminal or reputational ramifications.”

Sollers added that Yates, in addition to being a top-notch strategist, investigator and trial lawyer, is “widely respected for her integrity and resolve.”

Yates, who will split her time between King & Spalding's Atlanta and Washington offices, called the firm a “natural place for me.”

“King & Spalding is a place that does not just do top-notch legal work, but they really do it in a way of unparalleled integrity,” Yates said. “And it's a group of people I really like.”

The firm is well known for its white-collar practice, which has more than 100 lawyers, and Yates is the latest in a series of high-profile hires in that area, including former U.S. attorney for Chicago, Zach Fardon, and Yates' successor as U.S. attorney in Atlanta, John Horn.

Until last August the white-collar practice was led by partner Chris Wray, who left when he became Trump's pick for FBI director, replacing James Comey.

Georgia Roots

Griffin Bell, who died in 2009, started King & Spalding's special matters and government investigations practice after serving as U.S. attorney general under the Carter administration.

“Judge Bell was really kind to me when I was a young associate,” Yates said. “He encouraged me to go to the U.S. attorney's office, and he said to come back in a few years. It only took me 29.”

Yates joined King & Spalding as a first-year litigation associate in 1986 after earning a law degree from the University of Georgia. She said she was working with Bell on the investigation of the Exxon Valdez disaster when in 1989 she was offered the job as an assistant U.S. attorney.

As a federal prosecutor, she focused on white-collar fraud and public corruption prosecutions while also handling some drug and violent crime cases. Among her most high-profile cases, Yates was the lead prosecutor for Eric Rudolph, who was convicted of the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 and three subsequent anti-abortion and anti-gay bombings in 1997 and 1998.

Yates also was lead prosecutor in the 2000 public corruption and tax fraud case against former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, which culminated in a seven-week trial and Campbell's conviction on the tax fraud charges.

In a statement, King & Spalding's chairman, Robert Hays, called Yates “a lawyers' lawyer,” adding that her addition “is a remarkable development for our firm and clients.”

In the Public Eye

As deputy attorney general, Yates in 2015 issued the well-known “Yates Memo,” specifying that in federal investigations of corporate wrongdoing, companies must identify the specific individuals involved in the misconduct at issue in order to receive credit from officials for cooperating.

The memo is still in effect under her successor, Rod Rosenstein. However, after taking office last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions quickly rescinded another Yates directive that banned the federal Bureau of Prisons from using private prisons.

Since leaving the Department of Justice, Yates has remained active in criminal justice reform and has not been shy about criticizing the Trump administration for interfering in the affairs of the DOJ, including in a New York Times op-ed last July asserting that the president “is attempting to dismantle the rule of law.”

At a Washington event last fall, Yate defended the independence of the DOJ, warning, “The wall between the Department of Justice and the White House has been breached.”

“I consider that speaking out on policy issues, not political issues,” Yates told ALM. “I was a career prosecutor for all of those years before I was appointed U.S. attorney in Atlanta.”

Yates fundraised for a Democratic attorney general candidate in Ohio in September 2017, but she said she has no plans to hit the campaign trail or fundraising circuit again before the November 2018 elections.

If some members of Congress have their way, however, politics may continue to follow Yates in her new role.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte last week called for the Justice Department to investigate claims that Obama-era DOJ officials during Yates' tenure pressured the FBI to shut down a probe of the Clinton Foundation amid the 2016 presidential race. And the House Intelligence Committee on Friday lifted redactions to its report on Russian interference in the 2016 elections, revealing new information about Yates' testimony to the committee.

The report stated that the committee received conflicting testimony from Yates, former FBI director Comey, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe and principal deputy assistant attorney general Mary McCord regarding the “primary purpose” of the government's questioning of Flynn. The former national security adviser for Trump has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI investigators who questioned him.

All four named as giving conflicting answers have since left office, including three—Yates, Comey and McCabe—who were fired by the president.

Asked about her testimony, Yates said she did not know what Comey and McCabe told the committee and declined to comment, given the ongoing special counsel investigation by Robert Mueller.

Yates said she has confidence in Mueller, but she declined to address whether the special counsel has the legal authority to indict Trump. She noted she was aware of untested guidance from President Bill Clinton's Justice Department that suggested a president could not be indicted.

“I know there are legal theories on both sides,” Yates said.