The partners of Riegels Campos & Kenyon LLP relish the opportunity to do this exposé on our partner Sue Ellen Wooldridge who has jumped the ship to take a government job in Washington, D.C. While we eagerly follow the exploits of this 40-year-old whiz kid, including her balancing the interests of the endangered sucker fish against those of the Klamath basin farmers, we miss her lively presence in our office.

Sue has, since January 31, 2001, been the Deputy Chief of Staff for Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. How, one may well ask, did a person who grew up in Artois, California achieve such an exalted position? Pure talent, and the fact that Sue, while she was a California Special Assistant Attorney General, worked closely with Gale Norton, then the Colorado Attorney General, in negotiating the nation-wide tobacco litigation settlement.

Among her many talents, Sue is an outstanding athlete who has humbled us on the racquetball courts and on the fairways. She was the captain of the UC Davis women's intercollegiate basketball team, and she grew up playing competitive tennis. At her first court appearance in the Glenn County Superior Court, Judge Roy McFarland exclaimed in open court "I know her, she serves like a man!" We know what he means. Sue plays golf to an eleven handicap from the men's tees, consistently out driving the rest of us.

A native Californian, Sue was uprooted at the age of nine from a childhood spent at the beach in Carpenteria when her educator father accepted the superintendency of the Willows Unified School District. She adjusted quickly to farm life and soon became an avid horse back rider. She attended local schools (there were 12 in her eighth grade class), and she was graduated from Willows High School in 1979. She received her bachelor's decree in political science and history from UC Davis in 1983. She would be the last to tell you that she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. However, she is always ready to tell Stanford graduates that she turned down Stanford to attend Harvard Law School.

Having taken courses from such notables as Lawrence Tribe (constitutional law), Phil Areeda (anti-trust), Charles Nesson (evidence), Frank Michelman (property) and Bernard Wolfman (tax), upon graduation in 1987, Sue received the Outstanding Graduate Award of the National Association of Women Lawyers. Ever complaining of the dreadful Massachusetts weather, Sue spent each of her law school summers in Sacramento clerking at Diepenbrock, Wulff, Plant & Hannegan, and joined the firm upon her graduation.

At DWP&H, Sue was a civil litigator in the state and federal courts, handling all aspects of litigation from prejudgment remedies through trial and appeal. She concentrated on insurance contracts and coverage, employment and construction litigation.

In July 1994, Sue began the public law phase of her career when she accepted the position of legal and policy advisor to California Attorney General Dan Lungren, a former DWP&H partner. As Special Assistant Attorney General, Sue's responsibilities included litigation management, governmental relations, legislative advocacy and policy coordination among executive departments. In addition to her role in negotiating the 1998 tobacco settlement which brings California and its political subdivisions approximately $1 billion a year, Sue negotiatied a $200 million false claims act settlement with the Bank of America.

Sue disclaims all responsibility for the 1998 Lungren campaign. We were delighted that the collateral damage left her with no option but to return to private practice-with us! Sue was one of the seven founding partners of Riegels Campos & Kenyon LLP. During her two years here she represented the National Association of Attorneys General in the enforcement of the 1998 tobacco settlement. Starting in September 2000 she also served as general counsel for the Fair Political Practices Commission.

We were proud, dismayed and not at all surprised when Sue took a leave of absence from our partnership in January 2001 to accept the position at the Secretary of the Interior. On two weeks' notice Sue rented her home in Sacramento, stored her furniture, closed her law practice, moved to Arlington, Virginia, began her daily commute to her office at 1849 C Street in Washington, D.C., and took up complaining about the weather again.

Sue reports that her work is both exhilarating and exhausting. Given the glacial pace of the confirmation process, for most of the last six months, Gail Norton has been called the "Home Alone Secretary." She has depended upon Sue and four other personal staffers to assist her in the decision making for a 70,000-person agency that controls every fourth acre in the United States.

Sue has been called upon to deal with a number of high profile issues including offshore energy exploration in the Gulf of Mexico, the CalFed water program, the Vice President's energy task force, Bureau of Indian Affairs trust fund management, and the on-going Klamath basin controversy. She is pragmatic, not doctrinaire, in her approach, and her work has been praised by persons on all sides of these issues. She thoroughly enjoys the challenges of her position and the opportunities for engaging in high level governmental policy making.

We know that Sue will continue to work hard and make significant contributions in her position. We also know that she will eventually come back to our lovely California weather. Meanwhile, Sue welcomes visits from her many Sacramento friends.