When it comes to politics, connections count at McKenna Long & Aldridge

The world of politics and government is increasingly a confusing, raucous and messy place. There are endless ethics complaints, sweeping health care changes, ever-present lobbying scandals and desperate attempts to stimulate the economy.

But that’s all good for McKenna Long & Aldridge. The Atlanta- and Washington-based law firm has continually — and unashamedly — positioned itself to be a player in the corridors of power, where a phone call to the right official can make things happen.

“People in the firm have relations in and knowledge of government,” said Clay Long, the 74-year-old lawyer on the firm’s nameplate. “Sometimes you have to know where to go and how to get in the door to allow you to make your case.”

And making your case in the public arena may be more important than ever. The economy is more government-money driven, meaning companies need people with sharp elbows and insider skills negotiating and fighting on their behalf.

McKenna Long & Aldridge is big in hiring former, and influential, public officials. Many are nonlawyers because the political connections and government experience are sometimes more valuable than a law degree. The strategy has worked. In the amount of money brought in from lobbying, McKenna Long & Aldridge ranks 10th nationally among law firms, according to the National Law Journal. The $22.8 million in lobbying fees last year was the largest for an Atlanta-based firm, double its nearest rival, Alston & Bird.

Simply put, “They provide influential people to capitalize on their relations with elected officials,” said Bill Bozarth, the Georgia director of Common Cause, a government watchdog. “I’ve seen it again and again.”

The once predominantly Democratic firm now covers all political spectrums. On staff, there’s former Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean, a senior strategic adviser focusing on health care. And Republican Eric Tanenblatt, Gov. Sonny Perdue’s first chief of staff, heads the governmental affairs group. You want a foot in both camps? Well, there’s Zell Miller, Georgia’s former Democratic governor and U.S. senator who supported former President George W. Bush for re-election and holds the same title as Dean.

“Mostly everyone on our (government affairs) group has served in government, often numerous times,” said Tanenblatt, who also served under U.S. Sen. Paul Coverdell.

McKenna Long & Aldridge is hired to help businesses maneuver the minefields of toughened ethics laws, make sense of new regulations or get government contracts. Scandals like the case of Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist convicted of defrauding Indian tribe clients of millions, are a boon to the firm because laws are tightened in response, bringing more scrutiny on companies operating in the governmental or political realm. This means businesses and politicians will come to places like McKenna Long & Aldridge to stay out of trouble.

“They have a finger in every campaign,” said Neill Herring, a lobbyist for the Sierra Club, who has spent decades at the state Capitol. “They have certainly done that with the governor’s race.”

The firm had strong connections to the leading gubernatorial candidates.

Tanenblatt was once runoff candidate Karen Handel’s boss in the Perdue administration and donated $5,100 to her campaign. He served as the former secretary of state’s finance chairman until she lost to Nathan Deal last week. Randy Evans, an insurance litigator who is Newt Gingrich’s confidant and who recently represented Sarah Palin, is fighting an ethics complaint lodged against Republican runoff candidate Deal. So far, Deal’s campaign has paid McKenna Long & Aldridge $59,000 in legal fees, according to disclosure reports.

Members of the firm have contributed more than $46,000 to Democrat Roy Barnes, far more than any other law firm has given to any other gubernatorial candidate. McKenna Long & Aldridge lawyers Keith Mason, a Zell Miller aide and Clinton administration official, and Buddy Darden, a former Democratic congressman, are working hard in their private lives to put Barnes back in the job he lost in 2002. Mason and Darden terminated their longtime statehouse lobbying registrations, allowing them to donate money to Barnes, who has vowed not to take lobbyist money.

Chuck Clay, a former state senator and GOP chief, has a firm that lobbies and does law.

He said McKenna Long & Aldridge has been ahead of the curve.

“I have to give them credit,” Clay said. “It was the first of its type in the region. A lot of lobbying clients have legal issues, and legal clients have government issues. It works both ways. You can bill them coming and going.”

Mason agrees. “It’s a good segue into other traditional types of law work,” Mason said, noting that most of the firm’s business is traditional corporate law work. But, often, that work starts with a political or personal connection.

Getting involved in civic affairs and politics is often good business, Long said. During the 1980s, Long chaired the MARTA board, a contentious, time-consuming job that took him away from tending to his fledgling business. But the MARTA gig built his public profile and connections with political insiders. This proved valuable when he vied for the legal work for the massive redevelopment of Underground Atlanta in the late 1980s. His firm won the job.

“I would have never had a shot at that work without my time at MARTA,” he said. “It put us on the map.”

In 2002, Long’s firm merged with Washington-based McKenna & Cuneo, which had expertise in government contracting. Three years later, Long handed over the reins of the firm to Jeffrey Haidet.

Long said the firm’s bipartisanship was evidenced by his being picked by Barnes to head the administration’s green space committee and by Perdue to head his conservation plan.

The public work also led to the firm representing Georgia in the ongoing tri-state water wars. The firm billed the state nearly $6.7 million from 1996 until last summer when a federal judge ruled Georgia has illegally drawn water from Lake Lanier for decades. The judge gave Georgia, or Congress, three years to work out a deal with Alabama and Florida. After the ruling, the state brought in a former solicitor general to head the appeal, but the firm has still billed the state $868,000 in the past year.

“They’ve done very well. The state hasn’t,” Herring said.

The firm had revenue of $269 million last year, posting a healthy $830,150 profit per equity partner, up $55,000 from 2008 for each of the 88 equity partners, according to the Fulton County Daily Report’s annual survey. The firm has 163 of its 440 lawyers based in Atlanta, making it the city’s sixth largest firm in the number of attorneys based here.

“In political law, there’s going to be a lot of growth,” said Tanen-blatt. “You see ethics complaints and ethical compliance issues. There’s a lot of gotcha politics going on.”

The word in political circles is the firm is getting known as the place to go for Republicans in ethical trouble. But Haidet said Democrats get in trouble, too. And, of course, he wants them calling the firm.

Stefan Passantino, one of the firm’s lawyers who is making his name fighting ethics complaints against politicians, agreed his resumé “screams Republican.” But he said the bipartisan nature of the firm “gives clients comfort that they are not getting advice filtered by any political ideology,” he said. “Once they get past the initial shock of the lions and lambs together here, they realize there’s a benefit.”