DALLAS -- In the mid-1990s, lawyer Harriet Miers was representing a Dallas businessman who had lost a $5 million deposit on a Texas skyscraper. The businessman had sued, but his case was thrown out of federal court because he had failed to show up for some depositions and been unruly at others. Miers appealed the case. Her argument: A case should be decided not on procedure but on its merits. She won.
Now President Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court, Miers has not amassed a long public record on her own legal philosophy. But one strong theme emerges from her three-decade-long career as a private lawyer: a practical approach to the law with a commitment that everyone has a right to legal representation.
"Harriet was not so taken with her client," recalled Dallas lawyer Lewis LeClair, who represented the other side in the skyscraper case, "but she was interested in the policy question: Should a case be decided on procedural grounds or on its merits? I was an advocate for my client, but as a matter of policy, I don't disagree."
Miers, 60, spent virtually her entire professional career as a practicing lawyer in Dallas, ended up managing one of Texas's largest law firms and counted then-Gov. George W. Bush among her clients. Unlike some court nominees who have served on federal appeals courts or in high-ranking public office, Miers has left little in the public record that illustrates her approach to the law and how she might decide cases as a justice.
She worked briefly on the Dallas City Council, directed the Texas Lottery Commission and has served in the White House, most recently as the president's counsel. But the majority of her working life has been spent litigating corporate legal disputes for private clients, haggling more frequently over conference tables with attorneys for her opponents than in courtrooms. Her cases usually were settled before going to trial.
Miers's limited published writings indicate she is a lawyer interested in the nuts-and-bolts aspects of America's legal system. She has focused on the business of lawyering, writing about how to manage a law firm and the benefits of continuing legal education. As a member of the American Bar Association, Miers wrote two short articles on one subject: the practical question of how lawyers who are certified to work in one state should approach work in another.
Her one foray into the controversial social subjects that can animate the high court was her work as a member of the ABA to get the organization to withdraw its official support for abortion rights. Her colleagues said that stemmed from her belief that the national association of lawyers should not take a stance on abortion and other issues that are matters of personal conscience.
Miers's firm, Locke Liddell & Sapp, is one of Texas's premier law firms. Although it has been tarnished by two cases of its clients bilking investors -- the firm paid $22 million to settle one lawsuit in 2000 and $8.5 million to settle another a year later -- Miers was not implicated. Her critics have said the cases raise questions about her management abilities.
"They say, 'She was managing partner -- she should have known,' but that's almost an impossibility," said Karin Torgerson, a partner at Locke Liddell who also worked under Miers when she was staff secretary at the White House. "Once the management committee became aware of the situation, she worked hard and fast to resolve it."
Locke Liddell has had a roster of high-profile clients besides Bush, including Walt Disney Co. and Microsoft Corp.
Miers handled a major case for Microsoft, defending the software giant against a potential class-action suit from as many as 11 million customers in the mid-1990s. In that case, her colleagues said, she again homed in on the merits of the dispute and did not focus on procedure.
"She appeared to have an innate sense of fairness," recalled lawyer Sam Baxter, who lost the Microsoft case to Miers. "She was not doctrinaire." Baxter recalled that in litigation with time-sensitive documents and deadlines, some lawyers would view requests for extensions as "if you might have asked for their firstborn." Miers did not practice law like this, he said.
