Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who as the United States attorney in Chicago oversaw the prosecutions of two Illinois governors and a former Bush administration White House aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., is joining Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
Mr. Fitzgerald, 51, will work in the firm's Chicago office. Before stepping down at the end of June, he had served as the United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois since 2001, making him the longest tenured United States attorney for Chicago. He was a career prosecutor, having worked for the Justice Department for 24 years.
Two successive Illinois governors were prosecuted on corruption charges by Mr. Fitzgerald รข€" George Ryan and Rod Blagojevich. He was the lead prosecutor in the trial of Mr. Libby, a former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. A jury convicted Mr. Libby on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.
Skadden, with about 1,800 lawyers, has its headquarters in New York. Mr. F itzgerald is a New York native, having graduated from Regis High School on the Upper East Side before attending Amherst College and Harvard Law School. He worked in the United States attorney's office in Manhattan before moving to the Chicago office in 2001.
The news of Mr. Fitzgerald's move was earlier reported by The Chicago Tribune and The Wall Street Journal.
This post has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: October 22, 2012
An earlier headline of this article referred imprecisely to Patrick J. Fitzgerald. He is a former United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, not a current United States attorney or district attorney.
