The lawyer who co-founded a consumer rights organization with Ralph Nader will join the D.C. attorney general’s office as a special counselor, a hire designed to increase the profile of the agency and legal representation of the District.
Alan Morrison, who started Public Citizen with Nader in 1972, has been hired as a special counselor to Attorney General Linda Singer.
Morrison, who has argued before the U.S. Supreme Court more than 20 times, will advise Singer on key matters and special projects. He will help develop talent and expand the division in charge of protecting D.C. residents from consumer protection and environmental matters.
Morrison called Singer when he learned that she was leaving as executive director of Appleseed, a nonprofit that employs the top legal minds to solve deep-rooted community issues, to serve as attorney general. Morrison, who helped start the Appleseed field office in D.C., told her he was returning to D.C. and Singer said she jumped at the chance to add him to her team.
“We have some incredible talent here, but we can and we should bring in people like Alan Morrison,” Singer said.
Morrison, 68, said he wants to take on interesting projects and difficult cases, and increase the quality of the District’s legal representation.
For 30 years Morrison was the director of the Washington, D.C.-based Public Citizen consumer rights advocacy group. He has overseen cases in every federal circuit, including the District of Columbia.
Two years ago, Morrison unsuccessfully argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the Sierra Club for the release of Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force records. Morrison requested, also unsuccessfully, that Justice Antonin Scalia recuse himself because he went on a duck-hunting trip with Cheney.
Morrison will begin in August after he finishes his term as a professor at Stanford Law School.
