Pebble Beach Co., owner of some of the world’s finest golf courses, two of which are hosting the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am this weekend, has hired high-profile former Justice Department lawyer Patrick Hovakimian as its chief legal officer.
The move comes three years after he left public service to join Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman as a partner in Washington. Hovakimian put a decade of work inside the Beltway behind him for a job near the fairway in Pebble Beach, Calif., a coastal community about a two-hour drive south of San Francisco.
“It sounds a little hokey, but it occupies a special, mystical place in the minds of people who love California, the coast, and the outdoors,” Hovakimian said about Pebble Beach. “It’s clear the people around here really buy into that.”
Hovakimian plans to put down roots in Pebble Beach, although admits he isn’t a great golfer—“it’s been awhile since I’ve swung a club.”
“I get to live here, I get to work here,” he said. “It’s pretty amazing.”
It marks a homecoming for Hovakimian, 40, a Golden State native who now oversees the law department for a privately held company valued at more than $3 billion. Pebble Beach has been owned since 1999 by a group led by business executives Peter Ueberroth and Dick Ferris, who died in 2022, as well as actor Clint Eastwood, golf legend Arnold Palmer, and former CEO Bill Perocchi.
Hovakimian heads west at an exciting time for his new employer.
Pebble Beach’s namesake Pebble Beach Golf Links and sister course Spyglass Hill are hosting an annual Pro-Am that pairs professional golf stars such as Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy with notable amateurs to compete for a $20 million prize. Some elements of the competition changed this year, such as a smaller field for amateurs as those taking part are best known from other sports—like Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Pau Gasol—or are McDonald’s Corp. CEO Chris Kempczinski and former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Pebble Beach’s courses are open to the public—assuming one is willing to pay a $625 greens fee, which comes with some restrictions—but its luxury resort and golf facilities have long been a playground for the rich and famous. This year’s gathering is the first official PGA Tour event since the latter revamped its business model by agreeing to a $3 billion private equity investment.
Hovakimian, trained as a litigator, said he’ll keep tabs on litigation, land use, real estate, regulatory, corporate, and intellectual property issues in his new role.
Trump Administration
The Stanford Law School graduate started his career at Latham & Watkins, a legal giant with Los Angeles roots, before joining the Justice Department as a prosecutor in San Diego. In 2018, he was named a part-time commissioner of the US Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.
He detailed that work history in testimony before the US Senate Intelligence Committee in July 2020 as part of Hovakimian’s nomination to be general counsel for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, a role making him the top lawyer to the US intelligence community. Hovakimian, however, was never confirmed as the Trump administration’s days were numbered.
A congressional inquiry into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, detailed Hovakimian’s bid to subvert an attempt by Trump to use the Justice Department as a tool to further his election fraud allegations. Hovakimian, an associate deputy attorney general, drafted a resignation letter for himself and acting deputy attorney general Richard Donoghue, who would join him at Pillsbury Winthrop, to stop Trump’s firing of acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen.
Hovakimian had been chief of staff to Rosen, who stepped up after former US Attorney General William Barr resigned in December 2020. Rosen resisted Trump’s efforts to endorse the former president’s voter fraud claims.
Last year Hovakimian donated the maximum $6,600 to the ultimately unsuccessful Republican presidential campaign of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), making him one of several former Trump administration lawyers to do so.
Back Nine
Hovakimian’s new home at Pebble Beach, whose courses are known for their sweeping views of the Pacific Ocean, will see him work closely with another former Latham lawyer in David Stivers, who took over in 2021 as the company’s CEO, having previously led its legal operations.
That same year Pebble Beach elevated in-house lawyer Diane Goldman to general counsel, a role she’ll continue to hold handling the day-to-day operation of the legal function. Mark Stilwell, another longtime executive who had juggled general counsel and real estate duties, retired a few years ago, which with Stivers’ promotion created an opening for another lawyer in the business.
Pebble Beach is known for its cypress trees, including a lone cypress standing on a rocky bluff overlooking the ocean, an iconic image that also serves as the company’s logo and official name—Lone Cypress Co. LLC. For years Pebble Beach has battled with artists, photographers, and countless others over the trademark to that famous tree and other images it wants to protect.
That often requires outside counsel. Latham, Morrison & Foerster, Snell & Wilmer, and Monterey, Calif.-based Fenton & Keller have all done work for the company.
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