Robert S. Mueller III, who was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 years before stepping down in September, is joining the law firm WilmerHale as a partner.
He took the reins of the F.B.I. just a week before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Under his leadership, the bureau transformed itself into a counterterrorism agency. In 2011, President Obama asked the Senate to extend Mr. Muellerâs tenure by two years - making him the longest-serving F.B.I. director since J. Edgar Hoover.
âBob brings to the firm his broad range of experience as a career prosecutor, an ability to lead the most sensitive investigations, his steady hand in a crisis and unquestioned integrity,â Robert Novick, co-managing partner of WilmerHale, said in a statement.
Mr. Mueller has had a long career in government service. He served as the United States attorney in both San Francisco and Boston, and he was assistant attorney general in charge of the criminal division of the Justice Department.
A 1966 graduate of Princeton, he served with the Marines in Vietnam, where he was awarded the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. After he received a law degree at the University of Virginia in 1973, he joined the United States attorneyâs office in San Francisco in 1976. He received a masterâs in international relations from New York University in 1969.
In one of his few stints in private practice, Mr. Mueller was a partner at Hale & Dorr of Boston from 1993 to 1995, before the firm combined with Wilmer Cutler Pickering of Washington in 2004.