Sally Yates has become a partner in King & Spalding, the high-powered Atlanta-based law firm where she started her legal career.
Yates, a 27-year veteran of the Department of Justice who made national news when she was fired for refusing to defend the Trump Administration's travel ban, will be based in Washington as part of the firm's "special matters team," the firm announced Tuesday.
She will head up an investigations group that includes a number of other former government prosecutors.
“Sally Yates is a lawyer’s lawyer,” said Robert D. Hays, Jr., chairman of King & Spalding.
Yates, who is currently a lecturer at Georgetown University Law Center, worked at King & Spalding as an associate from 1986 to 1989 after earning undergrad and law degrees from the University of Georgia.
Before becoming nationally known, Yates had long been prominent in Atlanta, rising through the ranks to become U.S. Attorney.
"Her cross-examinations were so good," Atlanta defense attorney Jerry Froelich once told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "She'd destroy people on the stand. Brutal. Just brutal."
She was named deputy attorney general in early 2015, where she oversaw department initiatives aimed at corporate fraud, cybercrime, gang violence, civil rights and financial crime. She also led calls for prison reform.
Yates was acting U.S. attorney general when President Trump took office.
Soon after his inauguration, she warned White House officials that then-security adviser Michael Flynn had Russian contacts that made him vulnerable to blackmail. The White House at first took no action, although Flynn was eventually forced to resign.
When the first travel ban was challenged in court, Yates said the department could not defend it. Trump fired her on Jan. 30.
While she had previously held no partisan positions and had said she never wanted to run for office, the principled stand in opposition to Trump made her a hugely popular figure among those who opposed the administration.
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