Alumni Newsmakers

GW Law School Magazine

Staff

Fall 2003 Edition

Smooth Litigator

The day he argued against the new campaign finance reform law at the Supreme Court, Bobby Burchfield was checking his watch.

The minute the case was over, “I walked down the courthouse steps, handed off my briefcase to a paralegal, picked up another one,” and jumped into a car headed for the airport, his flight bound for Plymouth, Mass., where a wrongful death trial awaited him. He made the opening statement in that case the next day.

Burchfield obtained his law degree at GW in 1979, although you would never know it if you saw him. Both in appearance and energy, he seems to be no older than his thirties. His specialty is trial law—with complex corporate litigation in areas ranging the full spectrum of the law (though many cases have been concentrated in politics, antitrust, securities fraud, and commercial disputes). BankOne, Dow Corning, Exxon, the National Football League, and Microsoft are just a few client names.

The path to his first Supreme Court case was not surprising. Burchfield was selected for a special session of the court held in September to hear arguments on the Biparti-san Campaign Reform Act of 2002 by several groups opposed to the law, the frontrunners being his client, the Republican National Party, and the California Democratic Commit-tee. Burchfield was one of four attorneys selected to address the act as it relates to political parties.