As a partner at Vinson & Elkins and chairman of the DC Sports & Entertainment Commission, Mark Tuohey is an expert at juggling a busy complex litigation practice and community service. LawCrossing speaks with Tuohey about his role in high-profile investigations like Whitewater and bringing Major League Baseball to the nation's capital.
Mark Tuohey is clearly a happy man. Throughout the course of a one-hour interview, while fielding calls from reporters and the mayor's office, Mr. Tuohey says not once, but three times: ''I love my life at the bar.''
His enthusiasm is so genuine that it would be hard to doubt that Mr. Tuohey has a good time. The Fordham Law School graduate made a name for himself early in his career as a skilled investigator and a man of integrity and now focuses his practice in complex civil and criminal litigation and internal investigations and mediation in the United States and abroad, particularly in Ireland. Mr. Tuohey is close to his Irish roots and holds dual citizenship with a U.S. and Irish passport.
Mr. Tuohey, 58, grew up in Rochester, NY, the son of an FBI agent. He said he considered joining the FBI but was more drawn to the law and the chance to be a courtroom lawyer. He studied under the ROTC program, and thus Vietnam interrupted his education. Mr. Tuohey was pulled out of law school and sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for two years, where he was a legal officer and deputy commander of the stockade and eventually became the director of a drug rehabilitation center for veterans returning from Vietnam. President Nixon started to ''phase down'' the operation and Mr. Tuohey was not sent to Vietnam.
''It was an experience that my generation lived through and suffered through. In some ways, I'm sorry I didn't have the experience,'' Mr. Tuohey said of the war. ''I was just a few weeks shy of going.''
Mr. Tuohey finished law school and became an Assistant United States Attorney in Washington, DC, in 1972. The Washington office is unique because it has dual jurisdiction and handles federal cases and everyday crime in the capital.
''It was the most remarkable job that a young lawyer who wants to be a litigator could have,'' Mr. Tuohey said. ''I tried street crimes and federal crimes. It was the best experience any young lawyer could have. I was very fortunate. I have enjoyed all my experiences in the private sector as well. I love what I do. I love my life at the bar. But there was no job quite like that. It was challenging and exciting, and we tried a lot of cases. It was great.''
He worked as a prosecutor for five years and then became a special counsel to the Attorney General for 18 months before going into private practice in 1979. Public service has always been a part of Mr. Tuohey's career, even in private practice. He was president of the D.C. bar, the third-largest bar in the country, and Ken Starr hired him to help during the first year of the Whitewater investigation, despite being a Democrat (although some say because he was a Democrat, it made the independent counsel more balanced).
''I stepped down a year later. It was a very worthwhile experience. This was long before Lewinsky or any of that junk,'' he said. ''I was dealing with the White House, with Congress, with the Department of Justice, with all kinds of folks in the government, and it was a very productive year. It was a very civilized kind of relationship, and I'm very happy that I did it.''
His government practice has helped his private practice, where he represents people being investigated by various government agencies, including the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Investigators have many high-tech tools at their disposal to find information in computer databases, but Mr. Tuohey said the best information generally comes from people.
''I often use the services of private investigators, former FBI agents, former police officers who have private investigative agencies, and, of course, they have a lot of resources as well,'' he said. ''Nothing is truer than the human resources; people talk to you and provide information. But equally so, documents speak for themselves. There's a lot of information that you can find, that you can track. But nothing is probably more important than eyewitness information.''
In recent years, Mr. Tuohey has investigated abuse at homes for the mentally retarded and mismanagement at the Metropolitan Police Department. He is now working with the Bishop of the Rockville Center Diocese on Long Island, the fifth-largest diocese in the country, as a special counsel to assist in resolving the clergy molestation cases.
''You see a lot of anger and a lot of emotion,'' he said. ''We express the apology and the regret of the diocese and try to work out a resolution that helps the people get back on their feet.''
Mr. Tuohey said his experience as head of the bar proved that the culture of public service was healthy, despite rising law school costs pushing young attorneys to join big firms for purely economic reasons.
As head of the sports commission, he has a mixed bag of responsibilities, including building soccer and football fields for kids and helping Washington get a new Major League Baseball team. The Nationals, formerly the Montreal Expos, will start their season in their new home on opening day in April.
The mayor asked Mr. Tuohey to take over the Sports Commission in December, and Mr. Tuohey said the job now takes up about 25 percent of his time. He stepped down as co-managing partner of the Vinson & Elkins Washington office in January to make more time for the endeavor. He is used to juggling time. When he was head of the D.C. bar, the job took about 75 percent of his time. Fortunately, Mr. Tuohey said he only needs about five hours of sleep. He begins most days with a squash game or a workout around 6:30 a.m., followed by a breakfast meeting. And his day at work generally ends around 8 or 9.
Being a sports fan has helped in the Sports Commission job, he said. All three of his sons played Division I basketball in college and professionally in Ireland. One of his sons founded ''Playing for Peace,'' which brings Catholic and Protestant kids together to play basketball together in Ireland and has expanded to South Africa and will soon have a venue in Cyprus. All three of the Tuohey boys have worked in the organization.
''They've done a remarkable job bringing people together. They now have about 20 college graduates every year spending a year of service either in Northern Ireland or South Africa working with the kids,'' Mr. Tuohey said. ''I'm so proud of them.''
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