Texas Lawyer Blog
By John Council
April 21, 2009
Johnny Sutton has a new gig at a new firm. Sutton, the former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Texas, has announced that he’s starting Ashcroft Sutton & Ratcliffe in Texas. And yes, the Ashcroft in the firm’s name is John Ashcroft, U.S. attorney general during George W. Bush’s first term as president and the former Republican U.S. senator from Missouri who now heads the Ashcroft Group, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm.
Sutton will base his operations in Austin and will focus on corporate compliance, corporate representation, strategic planning and risk management, he says. “I’m very excited about the opportunity,” Sutton says. “Attorney General Ashcroft and I go way back. And we’re going to really represent people at a very, very significant level.” But Sutton isn’t the only former Bush-era federal prosecutor joining Sutton in the firm.
John Ratcliffe, who served as U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas from 2007 to 2008 until Bush appointed Becky Gregory to that post, will be a name partner based in Ashcroft Sutton & Ratcliffe’s Dallas office. And Catherine Hanaway, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, left her post last week to open Ashcroft Hanaway, the firm’s outpost in that state, Ratcliffe says. “It’s never been done,” Ratcliffe says of a former U.S. attorney general starting a law firm with former U.S. attorneys.
The idea is for Ashcroft Group clients to work with the law firm when necessary, Ratcliffe says. And while Ashcroft and his new partners are conservatives, politics won’t matter at the firm, Sutton says. “I’m certainly not pitching this as an all-conservative law firm. Most of us are Republicans, but our focus is on good representation,” Sutton says. But do expect Sutton to speak out on conservative causes soon. “I do want to keep a very public voice on policy matters as an aside from this,” he says. Sutton is best known for his clashes with conservative activists over his office’s prosecution of two U.S. Border Patrol agents for allegedly shooting at an unarmed drug smuggler who was fleeing across the Texas-Mexico border. Because of the controversy, Sutton is not sure how he’ll go over with conservatives these days. “I have no ideal answer to that question,” Sutton says. “It will be interesting to see what happens. Most people when they get to meet me—when reality instead of misinformation sets in—we get along just fine,” Sutton says. Ratcliffe says the political leanings of the firm’s partners ultimately won’t matter to clients. “It’s funny how political persuasions get set aside when they [clients] get into trouble,” Ratcliffe says. “We’re confident that with the team we’ve put together, those folks will come to us.” Ratcliffe says he is in D.C. today meeting with Ashcroft and Hanaway.