Alaska's new attorney general—a member of the Alaska Bar for less than four months
Among the questions that acting Attorney General Stephen J. Cox is going to have to answer are why he did not become a member of the Alaska Bar Association until May 7 this year.
(I had written earlier that he did not register to vote in Alaska, but that was inaccurate. The Division of Elections says that Cox registered to vote in Alaska in July 15, 2021.
Meanwhile, readers with experience in the practice of law have contacted me to say that lawyers who limit their work to their employer, only need Alaska Bar Association membership if they go to court or sign legal papers on behalf of the employer.
That means his decision to not become a member of the Alaska Bar until this year does not raise a legal question, but it does raise a political question about his ties to Alaska.
The Alaska Bar Association says that someone who serves as an in-house counsel can provide legal services to his employer pursuant to Alaska Rule of Professional Conduct 5.5(d)(1), so long as the services did not require him to appear in court or file pleadings in court.)
When Cox took a job with Bristol Bay Industrial in 2021 as senior vice president and general counsel, he said that his job was to establish the general counsel’s position within the company. The company is owned by the Bristol Bay Native Corporation.
“I’m particularly happy to play a role that straddles the law/compliance/governance functions on the legal side as well as the corporate strategy/development functions on the business side,” the Texan wrote in 2021.
He also said the “best part of the job” was that he would be working with his friend Mark D. Nelson again. Both had worked in the past at WilmerHale, a giant law firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Boston.
Nelson, former deputy chief counsel to the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, worked at the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation before going to Bristol Bay.
“Bristol Bay Industrial is a fast growing and highly acquisitive backer of choice for companies and leaders capable of delivering innovative solutions and disruptive technologies to the energy and industrial services markets,” the 10-year-old company says on its website.
The Native corporation at first referred to the enterprise as an “oilfield and industrial services holding company.”
In a 2021 story about Cox’s new job in Alaska, the website Law 360 quoted Cox as saying the general counsel position was a new one for the company.
“It’s not uncommon for companies to see a legal department as a cost or client service center or even just a mailbox where you send them a deal or a commercial agreement,” Cox told Law 360, a story that he posted on his LinkedIn page. He said he wanted to be seen as someone “who is advancing the business and adding to the bottom line.”
“Cox said he hopes his connections to the state, (Texas) where he was raised, will be helpful to Bristol Bay and the companies it supports that are doing work in Texas,” Law 360 said.
Cox was U.S. attorney in Eastern Texas for seven months at the end of the first Trump administration. “
Cox has long been active in national Republican politics and continues to voice his opinions, signing onto a chain letter in January of former U.S. Department of Justice officials promoting Pam Bondi’s nomination as attorney general.
Alaska requires that lawyers must be members of the Alaska Bar Association to practice law in Alaska.
He will face confirmation hearings before the Legislature next year.
One question for Cox is whether he practiced law in Alaska while serving as senior vice president, general counsel and chief strategy officer for Bristol Bay Industrial.
Rule 63 defines the practice of law as “representing oneself by words or conduct to be an attorney, and, if the person is authorized to practice law in another jurisdiction but is not a member of the Alaska Bar Association, representing oneself to be a member of the Alaska Bar Association;”
“either (i) representing another before a court or governmental body which is operating in its adjudicative capacity, including the submission of pleadings, or (ii), for compensation, providing advice or preparing documents for another which affect legal rights or duties.”
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