Former Rep. Ed Royce, R-California. (Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg)

Former Rep. Ed Royce, R-California, is joining Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck on April 1.

The former chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs will be a policy director in the firm's government relations department, working from Washington, D.C., and Orange County, California.

Royce said the firm's geography and bipartisan nature attracted him.

“I ran the Foreign Affairs Committee for six years in a very bipartisan way, and I saw the results as a consequence of that,” Royce said. “That was the culture of the committee that I helped create there, and it's the culture of this firm.”

Royce said Brownstein was “definitely my top choice,” and he didn't identify other firms that may have sought him out. He said being able to engage in his areas of interest through speaking engagements and congressional testimony was important to him, following a career in Congress that spanned more than 2½ decades, from 1993 to 2019.

Marc Lampkin, managing partner of Brownstein's Washington office, said that when the firm heard Royce was retiring, it knew it would want his expertise to benefit its clients.

“Over the course of the last several months as we got to know him, we thought that his worldview matched ours,” Lampkin said. “We want to be bipartisan; we want to focus on solutions and how to be a problem-solver for our clients. We thought it was a natural fit.”

Lampkin cited Royce's stature among lawmakers of all political stripes, his “dual-threat” committee expertise via the Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees, and his relationship with firm leaders.

Royce said he is eager to help U.S. businesses meet the “China challenge” and remain competitive on other continents. He said he plans to provide counsel and insight and develop dialogue for the firm's clients with public and private actors abroad to open markets, resolve disputes and build a healthy private sector around the world—including by promoting the rule of law in developing countries.

Both Lampkin and Royce said the mutual respect the California congressman has with Norman Brownstein, a founding partner, and Kenneth Khachigian, a Brownstein senior partner and former chief speechwriter to former President Ronald Reagan, were important to his integration into the firm.

Royce's addition follows soon after that of former Sen. Mark Begich, D-Alaska, who returned to Brownstein Hyatt as strategic consulting adviser this month after a failed gubernatorial bid in the state.

Brownstein's government relations team is coming off a successful 2018, with its fourth-quarter revenues coming within striking distance of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, the nation's top-grossing federal lobbying firm.

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