AH Law Group Builds Regionally, Serves Global Clientele

The biggest cases Asa Hutchinson has worked required him to be on location.

As the lead prosecutor in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment and as a member of the Florida recount legal team that helped deliver the 2000 election to President George W. Bush, Hutchinson was on the ground at the center of American history.

But while running for Governor in 2006, Hutchinson proclaimed that “you could run the world from Arkansas,” and now he’s backing up that belief in his home state by hanging his shingle at the World Trade Center in Rogers.

Along with his son, Asa Hutchinson III, the Asa Hutchinson Law Group PLC opened Oct. 1 sharing the fourth floor with the Arkansas WTC.

Addresses sometimes mean a lot, and the goals of the AH Law Group have a perfect synergy with their home office.

“Asa (III) has a great practice here regionally and we want to build that,” Hutchinson said. “We also have a clientele that is national in scope and it communicates something about Northwest Arkansas to say we practice out of the World Trade Center.

“It is an important statement about some aspects of our practice.”

Hutchinson graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1975, practicing out of Bentonville for seven years before being appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas from 1982-85.

He practiced privately again from 1985-96 before winning a seat as the state’s Representative to Congress from the Third District. From 2001-03 he was the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency and was under secretary for the Department of Homeland Security from 2003-05.

Hutchinson went back to private practice in 2006, joining Washington D.C. firm Venable LLP, where he worked on cases from export violations to espionage and corporate investigations to Congressional hearings.

Hutchinson still has an office in D.C., and a strategic partnership with Venable. Forming partnerships with other firms locally and nationally will help the AH Law Group extend its reach in addition to its plans to add more attorneys.

“I know my dad doesn’t want to be an associate for very long,” Hutchinson III said, eliciting a hearty chuckle from his father.

The AH Law Group will have a formal office in Little Rock as well, working out of Hutchinson’s consulting firm.

The two have been hard at work since October between clients of Hutchinson III and his father’s extensive clientele that stretches from Canada to Abu Dhabi, encompassing names like Bank of America, Wal-Mart, Novus and Raymond James & Associates.

Hutchinson even invited some clients from the United Arab Emirates to stop by the Arkansas WTC on a recent trip to the U.S.

The AH Law Group has also signed a consulting agreement with Blackwater Worldwide, the North Carolina-based company that provides security to State Department personnel in Iraq.

Hutchinson’s government experience both within and without will set the firm apart, his son said.

“That separates us from other law firms,” he said. “Others can do commercial litigation and do it well, but what we can offer — that a lot can’t — is his experience as U.S. Attorney, director of the DEA, Homeland Security and member of Congress. He knows the regulatory environment for corporate internal investigations as well as being able to interface with the Departments of Justice, Defense and State.”

The AH Law Group will focus on areas such as commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense, intellectual property, employment law and corporate governance, relations and compliance.

Hutchinson III, who graduated from the UA in 2000, was an associate independent counsel in D.C. from 2001-02 and an associate solicitor with the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office from 2002-05.

Before joining his father, he was in private practice in Rogers Warner Smith & Harris PLC.

“Practicing with my son has always been a dream of mine,” Hutchinson said. “It would be a thrill for any dad.”

Hutchinson, who grew up on a farm near Gravette and has a home in Bella Vista, called his years practicing law in Arkansas a “special time in my life.”

“I have deep roots here,” he said.