Where Will Robert Mueller and His Fellow Wilmer Alums Go Next?

Predicting the next career steps for Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the rest of his famously tight-lipped team may be nearly as hard as guessing the contents of the special counsel’s report.

Including Mueller, the special counsel’s team includes four former Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr partners, namely James Quarles III, Jeannie Rhee and Aaron Zebley. The Wilmer quartet had experience on government investigations ranging from Watergate to pre-9/11 al Qaeda. Mueller started as FBI director one week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks and kept the job for 12 years.

Will some or all of the highly credentialed Wilmer alums be returning to their firm now? The lawyers haven’t revealed their plans yet, and Wilmer’s leaders aren’t offering many clues. But in an interview earlier this month, Wilmer co-chairman Robert Novick did say the group hadn’t left the firm with any promise or expectation that they would return once the Russia investigation concluded.

“I don’t know what they plan to do, when they plan to do it, nor what we’re able to do,” Novick said at the time. “I can’t talk about it and wouldn’t talk about it.”

Novick called Mueller, Quarles, Rhee and Zebley “highly valued partners and friends,” adding, “If they’re interested in talking, we’re certainly going to talk to people.”

Other firms have doubtlessly made inquiries as well. But Jeffrey Lowe, D.C. managing partner of legal recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, said he wouldn’t be surprised if nearly everyone on the special counsel team eventually returns to where they came from, whether in government or at Wilmer.

Being a member of the team clearly raised the lawyers’ profiles—including for Mueller and others who were already prominent Washington players. But if the investigation had delivered a blockbuster finding, Lowe said, it might have had more of an effect on their career prospects.

Wilmer’s Novick noted that Mueller, 74 years old, and Quarles, who was a member of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, are at different stages of their careers than Rhee and Zebley. Rhee rejoined Wilmer as partner in 2011 and Zebley joined as partner in 2014. Mueller was partner at Hale and Dorr from 1993 to 1995 before it merged with Wilmer Cutler Pickering, and then returned to the firm as partner in 2014.

Before the Mueller probe was completed, several lawyers working on the special counsel’s investigation had already returned to their former roles. Brandon Van Grack and Kyle Freeny, for example, returned to their previous posts at the Justice Department, the special counsel’s office told Politico in October. Andrew Weissmann, a prosecutor on Mueller’s team, left earlier this month and was reportedly looking at returning to New York University.

As for those that remain, the wait continues—and the team has not been any more open about the nature of its work as it winds down. Mueller himself was spotted back in the special counsel’s office this week, after his report was delivered to U.S. Attorney General William Barr.