Discussions of Alberto Gonzales sometimes make references to diversity. President George W. Bush’s Attorney General, from 2005 to 2007, being of Mexican descent, will be described in a story as the first Hispanic to have served in a certain position.
But there is more than one definition of diversity. It also means variety. That is the other half of Alberto Gonzales’s relationship with diversity – the many different positions he has held as a lawyer. Long before Gonzales had the top spot at the Department of Justice, he was a partner at Vinson & Elkins in Houston. He then began a career in government service, holding the positions of General Counsel to then-Texas Governor Bush, Secretary of State of Texas, a Justice on the Texas Supreme Court, White House Counsel and then, finally, serving in the President’s Cabinet as the nation’s Attorney General. The former AG is now out of public service, but not the corner office business. He serves as Dean of Belmont University College of Law in Nashville. Certainly there are not many lawyers who have held this many significant top positions. Alberto Gonzales is the modern-day William Howard Taft.
The former Attorney General was kind enough to speak with me about a legal career with more variety than a cruise ship buffet. But first some background.
The 60 year old Gonzales is a graduate of Rice University and Harvard Law School in 1982. He served in the United States Air Force and attended the Air Force Academy. But his start in life was a world away from the ivy in Cambridge. Gonzales was born in San Antonio and raised in Houston. [The Astros fan told me that he’s holding out hope that this young team can keep it together and win the AL West.] One of eight children his family lived in a two bedroom house with no telephone or hot running water. His father was a migrant worker and construction worker with a second grade education. His mother had a sixth grade education. It is easy to see why former Arizona Senator Jon Kyl has reportedly said: “It would be hard to find a more compelling example of the American dream than Alberto Gonzales.”
Describing the substance of Alberto Gonzales’s career in a short space would be a challenge. As you can imagine, with a resume like his, there is a lot there. Gonzales’s Wikipedia entry has 242 end notes. To put that into perspective, Bill Clinton has 294. George H.W. Bush has 141. Frank Sinatra just 90.
Gonzales’s time at Justice was not without criticism. Most notably it centered around the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in the fight against terrorism. Of course, criticism, and political partisanship, is now de rigueur when it comes to the Attorney General – whomever it is. That’s just the nature of Washington. That it is a city where all it takes to be considered wildly successful is a 60% approval rating tells you all you need to know. Imagine that -- being disliked by four out of ten people and still being more popular than the Good Humor Man.
But despite all the powerful positions that Gonzales has held, I did not ask him a single substantive question concerning any. That Gonzales did this or that is not the story I’m after. If you can spell Google you can get all those answers. In addition, Coverage Opinions is always apolitical. The CO interview is designed to tell the stories of unique lawyers – ones who have done things unlike any others. In that vein, I’m more interested in how Gonzales dealt with the transition between each of his many positions, how they compared and what he has planned for Belmont College of Law.
From One Top Rung To The Next
A lot of lawyers hold many positions in their careers. But they tend to have a logical progression. There is a similarity between jobs -- one evolves into the next as they climb the ladder. And the jobs also usually share a common nucleus – involving the same practice area. But the positions that Gonzales held are extremely diverse, and, at least on their face, don’t fit this pattern.
In addition, in Gonzales’s various positions he held the top job from day one. When you are not the top person in a new job you usually get a grace period and can point to the learning curve when called upon to make decisions. But in his case, starting at the top rung, he presumably did not have that luxury. His positions no doubt called for making decisions with huge consequences from day one.
I asked the former Attorney General how he pulled this off. Surrounding himself with smart people he told me. And told me again. And told me again. He also explained that, while the positions were different, they did in fact have a continuity. This isn’t apparent -- but it makes sense after you hear him explain it.
Starting with a career in private practice, involving sophisticated transactions, Gonzales was schooled in how to deal with people, negotiate and know when to compromise. That training, he explained, served him well as General Counsel to then-Texas Governor Bush, a job that Gonzales compared to being the general counsel of a company -- where confronting a wide variety of issues is the order of the day. While Gonzales’s transition to Texas Secretary of State involved new duties, he continued to be a part of the Governor’s inner-circle and provide legal advice to him. Continuity continued when he went to the White House to serve as President Bush’s Counsel. While the stakes were now much higher, and the issues more difficult, the position shared similarities to his job as Counsel to Bush when he was in Austin. Gonzales called his time as White House Counsel “a very comfortable experience” for himself.
As for the transition to Attorney General, Gonzales explained that, on one hand, it was difficult, where “not only are you the decision maker but you’re the very public face of an organization.” But he also noted that it was made easier on account of a number of factors. Having just spent four years as White House Counsel, he had already been dealing with the Department of Justice on certain issues. He also came to the DOJ knowing its key players, being familiar with its bureaucracy and squabbles and having a relationship with the President. For all of these reasons, Gonzales told me that he felt that he was very qualified to come in as AG and his transition was much easier than it might normally be. The former AG also pointed out that the Department of Justice has 105,000 employees and less than 1% are political appointees. “The Department can function quite effectively and quite efficiently without the Attorney General,” Gonzales said, chuckling.
Of all the positions he has held, Gonzales had no hesitation in calling Attorney General the hardest: “[I]t’s just a very difficult job and you are going to be involved in the most controversial decisions.”
The Texas Supreme Court
As a big fan of the Texas Supreme Court I was thrilled to be able to ask Gonzales about his time as Justice Gonzales. [See the May 7, 2014 issue of Coverage Opinions for 2,000 words on why I believe that the Texas Supreme Court is the most important court in the country for liability insurance coverage and the Court’s Justice Don Willett the most important judge in America in that category.]
Justice Gonzales’s time on the Texas high court was brief – January 1999 to January 2001. He was appointed by then Texas Governor Bush and in 2000 elected to a full six year term with 81% of the vote. According to Wikipedia, citing to Lexis, the court issued 84 opinions during this period and Gonzales authored fourteen for the majority. A few were insurance-related – but nothing in the general or professional liability camp.
Gonzales told me that it was a real transition moving to the Supreme Court and he almost didn’t take the job because of the appearance that it may have had and that the Governor would be criticized. He had not been a trial lawyer and never served on the bench previously. He told me that he had several discussions about it with Governor Bush and ultimately decided that it was the right thing to do.
He explained that he was helped in the transition by being a Republic and joining a court with all other Republicans, having been appointed by a very popular Governor and the court working with him. Gonzales added: “I knew people were looking at me and so I worked as hard as I could.”
But Gonzales acknowledged that it wouldn’t be honest to say that it wasn’t a transition. He had to work at it as he didn’t have the experience. He also went from the hustle and bustle of being in the Governor’s office, something he enjoyed, to the solitary nature of an appeals court. The former Justice told me that he liked his time on the bench and would have stayed on if the White House had not come calling.
I told Gonzales that I looked at his insurance opinions and, as far as I was concerned, you’d never know that they were written by a rookie. He laughed and seemed to take some comfort in that. But he was very modest, making it clear that opinions often involve a collaborative effort between the Justices.
Belmont College of Law
Belmont University is a Christian liberal arts school located in Nashville. Founded in 1890, the University opened Belmont College of Law in 2011. Gonzales, a professor at the school since 2012 became its dean in April 2014. Opening a law school in the middle of a recession for the legal industry, and over-supply of new lawyers, seems a curious (to be kind) decision. Like starting up a floor mats business for Edsels. Belmont endured criticism for doing so. But ours is a free market system. And that will determine whether the school and its students succeed.
But in a way, opening Belmont Law in 2011 was not without an advantage. Law schools have long been criticized -- and rightly so -- for failing to train students to actually practice law. And no doubt some – many – of these fine schools will be very slow to fix the problem on account of institutional inertia. A “yeah, but it’s always been done that way” mentality will keep some law schools stuck in the era of Blackstone. Let’s face it, it’s hard to make law school more practical when the guy who teaches “Insects and the Law” has tenure.
Belmont, however, has a clean slate. Nothing has always been done any way to serve as a barrier to change. I discussed this with Dean Gonzales. He was quick to tell me that Belmont is well aware that, while theory is important, the law school needs to take steps to graduate practice ready lawyers. The school has a requirement that each student must participate in a certain number of practicums. In addition, each first year student is assigned to a practicing lawyer in Nashville to serve as a mentor. Nashville being Music City and also having a huge health law presence, the law school also offers two Certificates – Health Law and Music Law. These Certificates are designed to help better prepare students.
Gonzales teaches Constitutional Law, First Amendment, National Security Law and Separation of Powers. I asked him if students are intimidated and afraid to engage him in class on account of his status as a former Attorney General, among other things. He said it would be better to pose that question to his students. But the Professor acknowledged that he’s aware that it’s an issue and does what he can to encourage students to participate.
Belmont College of Law is located in a gorgeous building with the words Randall and Sadie Baskin Center written across the top. Randall Baskin is the founder and former owner of Continental Life Insurance Co. in Brentwood, Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Baskin provided a $7 million gift for Belmont Law’s new home. I asked Belmont’s Dean if this means that the law school is looking to train lots of insurance lawyers. That Belmont has an insurance benefactor does not mean that the school will have any specific focus on insurance, Gonzales explained, but it is certainly a part of the Health Care curriculum and interwoven with other disciplines.
I took my opportunity here to sell the Dean on the importance that insurance coverage should have in the law school curriculum – but doesn’t except for a handful of schools. Torts is the darling of law school. You can’t graduate without it. Torts is the captain of the cheerleading squad. But torts would barely exist if not for insurance dollars standing behind the defendants. Nonetheless, insurance law is the kid who knows how to thread a film projector. I made my pitch to Gonzales, as I have to lots of legal educators over the years. I hope he’ll give it some thought – especially with Belmont in an easier position to create a curriculum designed to graduate more practice ready lawyers.
Alberto Gonzales And What People Really Want To Know
I brought my call with Alberto Gonzales to a close by jokingly asking him if being Attorney General meant that he got to find out who killed JFK. No, he told me, explaining that when it comes to the government, you only get information that you need to know. But he took the opportunity to share the question that he gets asked most often about being AG: “OK tell me about Area 51.”