Marc Luber: Hey everyone – Marc Luber here - welcome to JD Careers Out There – where
we bring you career advice from fellow lawyers and non-practicing lawyers – to help you
achieve success and happiness in your career.
Sometimes we’re bringing you straight forward mentoring videos and other times we’re exploring
particular career paths you can take with your law degree.
Today we’re talking to Doug Kmiec – a retired U.S. Ambassador appointed by President
Obama who today is a Professor and the Caruso Family Chair of Constitutional Law at Pepperdine
University.
Doug started his career as a practicing lawyer in Chicago, changed careers to become a law
professor, and then went on to become a White House Fellow, which ultimately led to his
joining the Reagan Administration, where he served as the Assistant Attorney General running
the Office of Legal Counsel under US Attorney General Ed Meese!
Here’s a look at my interview with Professor Kmiec where I asked him to tell us about that
role with the Office of Legal Counsel.
Doug Kmiec: That is a pretty incredible office.
It basically is the in-house constitutional office for the President of the United States
and the entire executive branch.
It’s literally the general counsel of the executive office.
So…
Luber: Now are you in the White House?
Is your office in the White House in a case like that?
Where are you located?
Doug Kmiec: The Office of Legal Counsel is immediately adjacent to the Attorney General
in the Justice Department.
So, on the fifth floor there’s a rotunda in a fairly famous area of the building because
there were a lot of pictures taken during the civil rights era of Robert Kennedy working
in this office, working through the night.
So we we’re immediately adjacent to the Attorney General because we’re called the
Attorney General’s lawyer.
When there’s a difficult question that requires a disposition to resolve a dispute between
two parts of the executive branch, well, you’re not supposed to sue each other if you’re
both working for the same President.
So, this is sort of an in-house court, as it were.
So when HUD disagrees with Labor or Commerce or one of the other agencies, we resolve that
dispute.
When the President is asked to sign legislation, it comes to our desk first mainly for purposes
of reviewing it for compliance with the Constitution and for compliance with the President’s
program.
We do executive orders.
So when the President has the authority, has been given the authority by Congress to act
on his own, upon the finding of certain matters, we prepare those things.
One of the things that that job allowed us to do was to have the courage of our convictions,
because that’s the way that it was designed.
It was designed to be the place where politics didn’t enter into it – where it wasn’t
a policy call, it was a legal call.
So our approach always was to come in to the Attorney General or the President or the White
House counsel, whoever was the source of the request, and say, “look, we’re not saying
this is the policy you want or that we endorse the policy, we’re just saying this is what
the law requires.
And this is what we think you’re objectively expected to do.”
Sometimes that allowed us to do what I think was a noble thing, which was to extend the
coverage of federal programs to these individuals, but sometimes it meant we were disappointing
the President.
Luber: In the Full Interview, Professor Kmiec shares advice on breaking in to paths like
his, and he gives us an inside look at being a White House fellow, working at the highest
levels of government, and he shares his unique perspective to give you guys all kinds of
great career advice from following your passions and finding the right path for you to going
through a career change.
It’s great stuff!
You can find the full interview at JDCareersOutThere.com.
And you can take a shortcut to the site by going to JDCOT.com.
If you’re already at the site, you can scroll down to the full version – be sure to become
a member so you can watch the full interview and get access to lots more exclusive content
filled with great advice.
Thanks again for watching everyone – I’m Marc Luber and look forward to seeing you
again soon.
Take care.