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http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20110220_New_lawyer_in_town__hanging_up_his_shingle___quot_Arlen_Specter__Attorney-at-Law_quot_.html

New lawyer in town, hanging up his shingle: "Arlen Specter, Attorney-at-Law"

A new lawyer set up shop last week in Philadelphia, but he probably won't need to buy one of those placards you see in a Broad Street Subway car or on the back of a SEPTA bus: "Injured? Call 1-800. . . ."

The guy's got a fairly decent resumé. He has been chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, inquisitor of 14 Supreme Court nominees, Philadelphia district attorney, staff counsel to the Warren Commission investigating the JFK assassination. He earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and went to Yale Law School. And he has a killer Rolodex.

Now, at age 81, he is simply "Arlen Specter, Attorney-at-Law," as his just-printed stationery starkly puts it. He will be called "Senator" for the rest of his life - once you're in the club, you're in - but after 30 years, Specter no longer has the power to command a national stage on a pet issue, take a fact-finding trip to Syria, or cast a crucial vote on the Senate floor.

Instead, he's hustling for business.

"I'm newly minted," Specter said Thursday, having reactivated his lapsed bar memberships in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. (D.C. made him attend a course in legal ethics alongside young associates a third his age, before it would let him back in the fold.)

He works from a small, 19th-floor corner office on Locust Street, in what had been extra space at his son Shanin's law firm, Kline & Specter. The room is crammed with a round conference table, a bookcase, and a built-in credenza for a desk, with a laptop, an open appointments book, a potted plant, a telephone, and a fax machine.

The former senator sounded proud to be a solo practitioner, with his name listed apart on the building directory.

"I like the name," he said. "I've got a big investment in the name."

Already, Specter said, two Philadelphia law firms, which he declined to name, have engaged him to advise clients on implementing the federal health-care law. "I think I know something about it," he said. In the coming weeks, he's scheduled to make presentations at a regional meeting of trial lawyers in Wilmington and at a seminar on compliance with federal regulations in Washington, opportunities to pick up appellate work and corporate clients.

In early January, Specter left the Senate, defeated in his bid for a sixth term. To try to survive, he had become a Democrat; to the GOP primary audience, he was radioactive, a long-suspect moderate who had given the key vote to President Obama's stimulus. It was a return to the party of Specter's youth, but Democratic voters denied him the nomination.

Specter went blasting away at a sclerotic Senate unable to pass much big legislation because of procedural roadblocks, and at the "cannibalism" of ideological purity in politics.

At his gym the other day, Specter saw the Senate on C-SPAN, members milling around the floor doing nothing during yet another procedural motion. He has convinced himself that he does not miss such frustrations, or other elements of the life of a senator. A typical Monday in his old job could start with a visit to Scranton, followed by a stop in Harrisburg for a fund-raiser, and then a ride back to Philadelphia to board the Acela for Washington.

"It was time to come home," Specter said. "The Senate was not very satisfying for the last few years because of the bickering and the gridlock."

It was not always that way, and Specter is proud of the work he did, especially securing federal cash for medical research. He noted that Obama increased funding for the Cures Acceleration Network, which speeds the development of new drugs from basic research, as other programs were being cut. It's Specter's baby, brainchild of former chief of staff Craig Snyder.

Specter had been widely expected to join a powerful law firm, and he negotiated with a half-dozen, but nothing worked out: "When it was all boiled down, I prize my independence too highly. I like to come in and set my own schedule, and I'm only going to undertake matters that are of keen interest to me."

And, oddly for someone who practiced the art at the highest possible level, the prospect of office politics left Specter cold. He said colleagues would gossip about how much he made, when he showed up, how many hours he billed, what clients he brought in. Who needs it?

Instead, he's writing a book on his party switch and on political gridlock, trying to build a law practice, and looking forward to teaching a law-school class at Penn.

Specter's office no longer overlooks the Supreme Court, but he has some of his pictures up in the new place: Old friends. Sepia portraits of his mother, father, aunts, grandparents. His high school debate team. Specter holding his granddaughter Silvi hours after her birth. Specter chatting with Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Obama.

"I was ready to turn a new page," Specter said. "This is a very pleasant place to be. I feel at home."


Contact politics writer Thomas Fitzgerald at 215-854-2718 or tfitzgerald@phillynews.com.

Read his blog, "The Big Tent," at philly.com/BigTent.


Eric D. Schwerin
Rosemont Seneca Partners, LLC
1010 Wisconsin Ave., NW
Suite 705
Washington, DC 20007
(202) 333-1880
eschwerin@rosemontseneca.com
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