The man Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. nicknamed "The General" and turned to for advice on everything from keeping high-level nuclear waste out of Utah to ordering exotic food in Mexico is now working for a U.S. Supreme Court justice.
For Mike Lee, 35, the chance to spend a year as a law clerk for the newest member of the nation's highest court was just too good to pass up, even if it meant stepping down as Huntsman's general counsel.
"I had to take it," Lee said of the clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito that began in early July. "I've had a lifelong fascination with the U.S. Supreme Court. When I was a kid, I used to go with my dad to watch him argue here."
Lee's father, the late Rex Lee, served in the U.S. Justice Department under President Ford and as Solicitor General under President Reagan, and also as both the founding dean of Brigham Young University's law school and president of the university.
"I could sense the power and also the awe and reverence there is surrounding the Supreme Court of the United States, even as a kid," Lee said, comparing his chances of someday being a part of the high court as similar to playing for the Utah Jazz.
Although he was never drafted by the basketball team, Lee did get a call earlier this year from the high court. Alito — who had been an assistant to Lee's father when he was solicitor general — wanted him as a clerk.
Lee had clerked for Alito before, for a year in 1998-99 when Alito was on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third District. And Lee was one of some 29 Alito supporters nationwide who campaigned last year for his confirmation to the Supreme Court.
Alito, Lee said then, is "very nice, very genuine. If you could create an index that took into account one's qualifications and one's ego, he would be off the charts for both — absolutely minimum ego and maximum qualifications."
Lee himself earned similar praise from the governor's office. "Mike, in addition to being a superb attorney, is also a delightful individual and a colleague we enjoyed being with," said Huntsman's spokesman, Mike Mower.
While Lee spent the bulk of his time as the GOP governor's general counsel on serious issues including foiling Private Fuel Storage's plans to build a high-level nuclear waste site in Tooele County on Goshute Indian land, there apparently was time for fun in the office, too.
Take Lee's nickname, "The General." Mower described it as "a cross between respect for (Civil War) Gen. Robert E. Lee — and he has some of his traits — and the General Lee car in Dukes of Hazzard," Mower said.
With several Mikes serving in the Huntsman administration, Lee explained, "it was easier to just call me 'The General.' They did that on the Dukes of Hazzard from time to time when referring to Bo and Luke Duke's beloved car."
And when the governor traveled to Mexico City last summer to meet with outgoing Mexican President Vicente Fox, Lee went along, putting his fluent Spanish to use in official meetings as well as in offbeat restaurants featuring such delicacies as fried grasshoppers.
Menu recommendations aside, Lee's focus during the 1 1/2 -years he spent as general counsel was on giving the governor advice, both legal and political. "Everything a governor does has legal implications," Lee said. And political implications as well.
"It's almost impossible to say where the political ends and the legal begins," Lee said. "I would actually say it's all legal, and yet, because I worked for an election politician, there were constantly political considerations that had to be taken into account."
For example, when Huntsman wanted to establish a formal alliance between Utah and Mexico. While that wouldn't necessarily have been a legal problem, Lee said he still warned the governor, "out of an abundance of caution," not to do it.
"Very often, and that example is no exception, there are things the governor could do that probably would not get him into trouble," Lee said. "But there was enough of a potential concern," especially if someone wanted to press the issue for political reasons.
Lee's clerkship lasts just a year and once it's over, he said he would like to return to Utah with his wife and three children. After taking a pay cut from the governor's office, though, he could end up back in private practice.
A recent Washington Post article described hefty signing bonuses of around $200,000 being paid to former Supreme Court clerks by various high-powered law firms. Lee's career includes a stint with a Washington, D.C.-based law firm specializing in appellate litigation.
Mower said that while "it would be a delight" to have Lee return to the Huntsman administration when his clerkship ends next year, "there hasn't been any discussions that far ahead."
Lee admitted it was "absolutely" a difficult decision to resign as general counsel while the state was still battling to stop PFS from building a high-level nuclear waste dump in Tooele County on the Goshute Indian property.
"I have long vowed to assist the governor in his efforts to fight PFS and to continue fighting until PFS is dead — and to dance on PFS' grave," he said. "It was hard to leave before that was done."
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