Lobbying World

• Former Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa), who retired at the end of last year, has joined boutique consulting and lobbying firm Hecht, Spencer & Associates, becoming a partner at the shop. It will now be known as Hecht, Latham, Spencer & Associates, Inc.

• Former Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), who led the House Ways and Means Committee, is being named a senior policy adviser at PricewaterhouseCoopers’s national tax services practice in Washington. He served 12 terms in Congress and left earlier this year.

• The American Cleaning Institute has created a new position — director of legal affairs — and put attorney Ceara N. Flake in the role. Flake has served as a contract lawyer for blue chip companies such as AT&T, U.S. Airways and The 3M Company.

• Jim Brandell, formerly Dave Camp’s chief of staff, is now a government policy adviser at Dykema, a national law firm. He worked for the Ways and Means Committee chairman for more than a decade and served as the lawmaker’s liaison with congressional leadership and the White House. He also oversaw the congressman’s fundraising activities.

•Sidley Austin hired the No. 2 Justice Department official, James Cole, to serve as a partner in its white collar government litigation and investigations practice. He most recently served as the deputy attorney general, from 2011 to earlier this year.  Cole first joined the department in 1979 and has served for 13 years in various positions, developing “stronger coordination between the DOJ and financial regulatory agencies,” according to a release. He also coordinated the federal response to states’ decriminalization of marijuana. In addition to his time at the DOJ and in the private sector, Cole also served as the special counsel to the House Ethics Committee conducting its investigation of then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). 

• Day Pitney hired Steven A. Cash as counsel in the commercial litigation department and the white collar defense and internal investigations practice group. Prior to that, he founded his own firm in Washington, the Law Offices of Steven Cash. He also has experience as a high-ranking aide in many federal panels and agencies, including the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism and Homeland Security, and as chief counsel to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). 

— This post was updated at 5:43 p.m.