Former 9th Circuit judge joins King & Spalding

When former 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Paul J. Watford was planning to retire from the federal bench in 2023, he joined Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati as a Los Angeles partner but also interviewed with King & Spalding LLP. 

Wilson Sonsini prevailed in the battle for Watford's services in June 2023 but David K. Willingham, a Los Angeles-based King & Spalding partner and longtime friend of Watford's, never gave up on luring the former judge to his firm. 

On Wednesday, Willingham and King & Spalding succeeded. 

"I came close to accepting an offer from them then," Watford said in an interview on Teams. During recent conversations, "I met quite a few of the lawyers here, and every single person I met with, I really liked," he said. "It's a team-oriented way of practicing law." 

"This is the right choice for me," said Watford, 57, who joined the firm as a partner in the business litigation practice group, where he will spend three-quarters of his time on trials and the rest on appellate work. 

He will work out of the firm's Los Angeles office. 

An appointee of President Barack Obama, Watford ruled on over 2,000 appeals and wrote more than 600 judicial opinions during an 11-year tenure on the federal appellate court. 

Before his judgeship, Watford was a partner at Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP and an assistant U.S. attorney, where he prosecuted complex white-collar crimes. A graduate of UC Berkeley and UCLA School of Law, he is a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

Watford, who was one of the leading Black judges in the country, was once considered as a U.S. Supreme Court candidate. 

Willingham said he has maintained contact with Watford over the years. 

"He is an extraordinarily talented lawyer," he said in a phone interview. "There is not a thing he cannot do." 

Damien Marshall, co-leader of the firm's business litigation practice group, hailed Watford's arrival at the firm. 

"Paul is a perfect fit for our collaborative culture, and his experience as a prosecutor, in private practice, and on the Court of Appeals brings a new dimension to the counsel we provide to our clients," he wrote in a statement. 

A Wilson Sonsini spokesperson released a statement: "We thank Paul for his contributions to our firm and our clients, and we wish him well." 

Like in his last job search, Watford said he did not use a legal recruiter.  

He described himself as a "generalist" and was part of a team that prevailed in his first trial since leaving the bench last fall, winning a complete defense verdict for La Jolla biopharmaceutical company Inhibrx Inc. against claims of trade secret misappropriation in a Delaware trial. I-Mab Biopharma v. Inhibrx Inc. et al., 22-cv-00276 (D. Del., filed March 1, 2022).