Washington DC, USA - May 4, 2009, Washington DC, USA - Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP announced that John J. Sullivan, who served as the U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce until January 2009, will join the firm's Washington, D.C. office as a partner.
Article continues below
Mr. Sullivan was a law clerk for Associate Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court of the United States, and before that for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Fifth Circuit. He received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law in 1985, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Book Reviews Editor of the Columbia Law Review.
Mr. Sullivan's distinguished career in public service culminated in his nomination by the President as Deputy Secretary of Commerce in 2007. After unanimous confirmation by the Senate, Deputy Secretary he served as the chief operating officer of the Department's 13 bureaus and 38,000 employees implementing U.S. government economic, telecommunications, and environmental policies. He also served by appointment of the President as a Member of the Board of Directors of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
As Deputy Secretary, Mr. Sullivan played a substantial role in the development and administration of U.S. trade law and policy. He co-chaired the transparency component of the Bush Administration's Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED) with China and participated as the senior Commerce Department representative in the Fifth SED with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson in Beijing in December 2008. He led trade missions composed of representatives of dozens of major companies to open foreign markets for U.S. exports; participated by appointment of the President as a senior member of the U.S. delegation to the Palestine Investment Conference in Bethlehem in May 2008; and, as a co-chair of the U.S. delegation, moderated the discussions between U.S. business leaders and senior members of the Iraqi government at the Iraq Business Dialogue in Baghdad on November 1, 2008.
Mr. Sullivan was the senior official in the Department of Commerce with responsibilities for the Department's participation in the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). He was also involved in every significant export control matter that has arisen in the last four years, including the validated end-user programs for China and India and the development and revision of the "deemed exports" policy of the Department's Bureau of Industry and Security.
Before serving as Deputy Secretary, Mr. Sullivan was the General Counsel of the Commerce Department following his nomination by the President and unanimous confirmation by the Senate in 2005. As chief legal officer, he oversaw the work of more than 400 lawyers in all aspects of the Department's trade advocacy and litigation, export controls policy and enforcement, foreign investment reviews by CFIUS, and patent and trademark policy and litigation. Mr. Sullivan participated extensively in the litigation and settlement of the Canadian softwood lumber trade dispute. He also chaired the U.S.-China Legal Exchange. ■