The Journal Record
By Marie Price
July 30, 2009
OKLAHOMA CITY – Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and Crowe & Dunlevy attorney Robert McCampbell said Wednesday that a formalized affiliation between their firms will expand the services and depth of experience of both.
The Ashcroft Group, based in Washington, D.C., has consulting and legal components. Ashcroft said 120-plus-lawyer Crowe & Dunlevy will provide his four-year-old group with needed legal expertise in a variety of areas. He said one of the first joint efforts involved an intellectual property issue.
“Our times together have been very fruitful and productive,” Ashcroft said. “As a result, we have a relationship that we want to be able to call upon each other when occasions arise which could benefit from our joint efforts.”
He said that in addition to Washington, and now Oklahoma City, The Ashcroft Group has an attorney presence in Boston, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., and Dallas and Austin, Texas.
“We have done a serious amount of work with Crowe & Dunlevy,” said Ashcroft, saying the professional relationship goes back about two years.
Ashcroft’s group includes several former U.S. attorneys.
“We want to be a group of lawyers that can get to resolution as quickly as possible, particularly in the business environment,” he said. “So often, the protraction of legal disputes involves paralysis for the business. They don’t know exactly what they can do to move forward. One of the great values of the former U.S. attorneys that we tap in our group is that they have an understanding of what’s likely to be the best possible outcome for a client.”
Whether that outcome includes a penalty, settlement, adjudication or other outcome, Ashcroft said it is important for a business to get a case behind it, “So the enterprise can do what enterprises are supposed to do, employ people and provide services and move forward.”
Among its other services, the consulting part of Ashcroft’s firm assists businesses that have run into difficulty.
“Frequently, institutions that have had lapses in their compliance with federal regulations and the like need to have some restructuring, need to develop a culture in the corporate setting or in the institution, which reinforces compliance and adherence to the regulations and requirements of government,” Ashcroft said. “The Ashcroft Consulting Group is talented in developing the kinds of regulations, internal for the corporations, the kinds of internal structure, the kind of internal auditing procedures, that help make sure you don’t have the violations, once you have corrected them.”
Ashcroft said the group has also assisted with international mergers.
“From time to time, the kinds of contacts I had made routinely as attorney general in the international community have been valuable to us in assisting clients who had difficulties overseas,” he said.
Ashcroft’s group also helps clients in the nation’s capital.
“There are times when we assist entities and businesses with their dealings in Washington, D.C.,” he said. “We are not primarily a lobbying organization, but we like to help people resolve disputes and we like to help people who have been in a noncompliant posture to find ways to satisfy the law fully and move forward.”
McCampbell, a partner in Crowe & Dunlevy, is a former U.S. attorney. He has known Ashcroft since 2001, when both served with the U.S. Department of Justice.
“The Ashcroft firm brings some capabilities and some expertise that complement what our firm does very well,” McCampbell said.
He noted the Ashcroft firm’s Washington presence as an example.
McCampbell said that as a full-service law firm, Crowe & Dunlevy brings a variety of expertise to the affiliation.
“If there’s some particular type of expertise The Ashcroft Group doesn’t have, we provide a ready option for their clients to have the right kind of expertise, right away,” McCampbell said.
Ashcroft spoke following a tour of the bombing memorial. Stopping before a picture of children in the Murrah Building’s day-care center, Ashcroft asked memorial Executive Director Kari Watkins if anyone had followed up on the lives of the surviving children. Watkins replied that some recently completed college.
“It doesn’t lose its impact over time,” Ashcroft said of the memorial, which he has visited before.
He said the memorial serves as a reminder of what a threat terrorism can be, how it can devastate so many lives, how important freedom is and how difficult it is to protect.