McCain's chief vetter

O’Melveny & Myers, L.A.'s venerable law firm, is expected to reelect Arthur Culvahouse as chairman, despite a majority of partners initially supporting other candidates. According to The Recorder, that majority apparently couldn’t decide on a preference among the four other possibilities. Does the name Culvahouse ring a bell? Perhaps that’s because the former counsel to President Reagan was tapped by McCain earlier in the year to head up the VP search team (which of course proved to be unnecessary when McCain made his selection from the Yellow Pages). By the way, both the LAT and WP reported that Culvahouse interviewed Palin at length last week (even though he was also chasing down information about Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as late as last Thursday, the day that Palin was selected). But back to O'Melveny, which has become an increasingly fractious firm. The grousing is over everything from profitability to a shift in focus to the offices back east (Culvahouse himself is based in Washington). The Recorder gets into some of the discontent:

Former partners say the profit numbers and a geographical culture shift have led to dissatisfaction. As the firm has expanded, there was necessarily more emphasis placed on growth in offices outside of L.A., one former partner said. "The economic performance of the firm has been flat; there's an East-West divide between the partners on each coast; and there's a perceived breakdown of the traditional values of collegiality and transparency, and people blame Culvahouse," said one former partner. "There was a lot of resentment that the L.A. office was no longer the center of the universe," said another former partner who had worked in Los Angeles.