Former Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has joined law firm DLA Piper as a member of its regulatory and government affairs group, where he’ll lead a newly established health policy consulting practice, the firm said Tuesday.
Burr, who did not seek re-election in 2022, joins the firm weeks after leaving the Senate. He spent three decades as a lawmaker on Capitol Hill.
He was the top Republican on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee during the last Congress. The panel oversees much of the Health and Human Services Department, including the Food and Drug Administration, among other federal agencies.
Burr stepped down from his post as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020, amid an investigation into stock trades he made before the Covid-19 pandemic. He sold 33 stocks around the time intelligence officials delivered closed-door briefings with lawmakers about the emerging health care threat.
He revealed last month that the Securities and Exchange Commission ended its investigation, choosing not to take action against him over the trades. The Justice Department closed a separate criminal probe of the trades in 2021.
Burr said in an interview that he’s joining DLA Piper because he didn’t want to be on the sidelines during one of the “most exciting” times to be in health care and life sciences. He’s bringing some of his former aides to help DLA Piper clients navigate regulatory and legislative channels related to issues such as healthcare and drug development, Burr said.
Margaret Martin, a former senior adviser of health policy on the Senate HELP panel, and Michael Sorensen, Burr’s former operations director, are joining him at DLA Piper.
“My team has the deepest knowledge of health care architecture in Washington,” Burr said. “That’s going to be extremely important as we begin to see new technologies in health care.”
DLA Piper is among the largest law firms in the world, with thousands of lawyers and policy advisers. Its client roster includes pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotech company Illumina Inc.
The law firm reported roughly $12.4 million in Lobbying Disclosure Act revenue in 2022. It earned about $3 million in lobbying fees from Illumina and $350,000 from ResMed, a medical equipment company, according to Bloomberg Government data.
DLA Piper has added more than 20 attorneys and advisers who specialize in health care and life sciences over the past two years, according to the firm. Jim Greenwood, a former Republican House member, is now among its registered lobbyists.
Under congressional rules, Burr will be barred from lobbying his former colleagues for two years. He said he’s undecided on whether he would register in the future.
DLA Piper has also in recent years added Geoff Levitt, a former chief regulatory counsel at Pfizer, and Sharon Mayl an ex-FDA senior policy adviser, each of whom are lawyers in the firm’s FDA regulatory practice.
Burr was first elected to the House in 1994 and moved to the Senate roughly 10 years later.
He is among a handful of lawmakers who have in recent weeks headed to the private sector after vacating their seat in Congress. On Monday, Arnold & Porter said it had hired former Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.) as a policy adviser. Holland & Knight last month hired former Rep. Ed Perlmutter, (D-Colo.).
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