I’m pleased to announce that I’m taking a dream job: on July 1, I will start at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research as a resident fellow and director of the AEI Liability Project. I should continue writing for Overlawyered, but I’ll also have the additional time and freedom to do longer and more comprehensive articles and books, as well as the opportunity to work with scholars on empirical and public policy research on litigation reform issues and questions. In the words of Glenn Reynolds, I’ve taken the Boeing, though I’m not sure that metaphor works for a lawyer taking a paycut.

I certainly want to thank the editor of this site; this opportunity wouldn’t have been possible if Walter Olson hadn’t been generous enough over the last couple of years to let me regularly speak on a prominent platform he spent years building. Wally’s been a great mentor and, while we won’t be at the same thinktank, I’m looking forward to the many chances we’re going to have to work together over the years on these issues. I want to thank Jim Copland and the rest of the Manhattan Institute for the same reason.

I leave O’Melveny & Myers on May 6. Even if my first day hadn’t been September 10, 2001, I’d always remember starting at the firm. I’ve had some tremendous experiences with what the American Lawyer magazine called the “Litigation Department of the Year,” including dodging fallen trees in the middle of Hurricane Isabel to make it to the office to write a contingent emergency Supreme Court petition in the event that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a mandate to shut down the 2003 California recall election, or working on a gigantic ITC administrative trial where the judge regularly held court until midnight. But it’s the people who have made the last three and a half years great. I’ve gotten to work with some of the great lawyers of today, including, but not limited to, John Beisner, Walter Dellinger, Brian Boyle, Chuck Diamond, Mark Samuels, Pat Lynch, and Rich Parker, as well as wonderful attorneys who will be recognized as the greats of tomorrow, including, but not limited to, Brian Brooks, Ian Simmons, Jessica Davidson Miller, Evelyn Becker, David Applebaum, and Matthew Shors. [bumped by editor; originally posted by Ted 4/26 at 17:59]

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