Wilmer offices in Washington, D.C. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM

Late last December, Carl Nichols, a top regulatory and government litigation partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington, took a call from the White House.

A Trump lawyer wanted to know whether Nichols was interested in a vacancy on Washington's federal trial court. The next day, Nichols recounted, he said yes. Trump would nominate the former top U.S. Justice Department lawyer in June.

Nichols revealed the White House's interest in him in his newly posted U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee disclosure.

That he was pitched on becoming a judge is not unusual. Still, the circumstances often work the other way: A lawyer who wants to snag a seat on a bench makes that information known through various channels, including applications to nomination advisory panels.

Nichols reported earning $2.5 million in partner income at Wilmer Hale last year, according to a financial disclosure that accompanied his questionnaire. The previous year, he listed his income at $2.4 million. Average partner profits at Wilmer Hale rose to $2.12 million in 2017.

Nichols has been a Wilmer partner since 2010, when he joined the firm from the U.S. Justice Department. He's served on the firm's management committee since 2017. Earlier, Nichols was a partner in the Washington office of Boies Schiller Flexner, working there from 1998 to 2005.

Several other Wilmer lawyers are up for posts in the Trump administration: Dan Berkovitz, co-chair of the firm's futures and derivatives practice, was nominated for a seat on the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Jeffrey Kessler, a regulatory counsel at the firm, was picked for a compliance post at the U.S. Commerce Department. Gail Ennis, a now-retired securities litigation partner, was nominated to be the inspector general at the Social Security Administration.

Nichols would join another Wilmer alum on Washington's federal trial court: Randolph Moss, a former chairman of the firm's regulatory and government affairs group, joined the bench in 2014. Trump has appointed three other judges to the D.C. federal trial court: Timothy Kelly, Trevor McFadden and Dabney Friedrich.

What follows are some highlights and details from Nichols's Senate questionnaire and from his work at the Justice Department and Wilmer Hale.

➤➤  Nichols clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas during the 1997-1998 term. At the high court, Nichols' fellow clerks included former Hughes Hubbard & Reed partner John Wood, who recently joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as chief legal officer and general counsel. Another co-clerk that term, Arthur Long, is a partner in the New York office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where he co-chairs the financial institutions practice. He married a fellow Thomas clerk from that term, Wendy Stone, a Republican who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer in 2016. Earlier, Nichols clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Nichols is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School.

➤➤  At Main Justice, Nichols last served as principal deputy associate attorney general, supervising 13 department components that included the Civil Division, Civil Rights and Antitrust. From 2005 to 2008, Nichols supervised the Civil Division's federal programs branch, the component that is often involved in some of the most significant federal agency disputes.

Nichols was involved in some of the most visible litigation disputes of the day involving separation of powers and government surveillance. He defended against the House Judiciary Committee lawsuit seeking enforcement of subpoenas issued to senior White House officials, including then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten, the former White House chief of staff, amid the investigation of the firing of U.S. attorneys.

In his Senate questionnaire, Nichols identified the dispute as one of the top 10 matters he's handled. His co-counsel at the time was Gregory Katsas, who is now serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. “We were dealing with matters that got to fundamental questions of constitutional law, inter-branch powers and national security,” he said in an interview in 2010. “It was an incredibly interesting docket.”

➤➤  Nichols' work at Wilmer Hale primarily focuses on cases that have a significant government or public law component, he said in his Senate questionnaire. Nichols was lead liability-phase counsel to United Launch Services LLC in a contract dispute against the U.S. Department of the Air Force. The company was seeking $396 million in adjustments because three satellites the company launched for the Air Force were heavier than the parties agreed. Nichols is co-counsel with Wilmer Hale's Howard Shapiro representing two federal defendants in their individual capacities in a suit that alleges unlawful FBI surveillance. The dispute is now pending in the Ninth Circuit.

Nichols is the lead Wilmer lawyer in a pending suit that alleges the U.S. Navy is on the hook for $596 million for using unlicensed copies of virtual reality software owned by the German computer company Bitmanagement Software. The case is pending in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Nichols said over the course of his career he has worked on about 30 pro bono matters. He successfully oversaw the clemency petition for a 77-year-old Vietnam veteran named Thomas Brown, who had been serving a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense. President Barack Obama granted clemency to Brown in November 2016, two years after Nichols filed the petition.