Burnley Ruled for Eastern While Applying to Join Airline’s Law Firm

WASHINGTON — Former Transportation Secretary James H. Burnley IV was actively negotiating to join a prominent Washington law firm at the same time he issued an important ruling in favor of Eastern Airlines, one of the firm’s major clients in the transportation field.

In December, Burnley took the unusual step of personally handling a request by the Air Line Pilots Assn. that the department launch an investigation into Eastern’s “continuing fitness” as a carrier in view of its continuing financial troubles. Such matters usually are dealt with at the assistant-secretary level.

A week after the petition was filed, Burnley rejected it in a strongly worded order, calling the move “a transparent attempt” by the union “to put pressure on Eastern by raising new safety concerns.” The effort, he said, “borders on abuse of the department’s processes.”

At the time Burnley worked on the petition, he had been negotiating for at least a month to join Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge.

The 220-lawyer firm does extensive work before the Transportation Department for Eastern and another Texas Air subsidiary, Continental Airlines, but did not work on the petition from the pilots union.

Shaw Pittman announced this month that Burnley will become a partner in the firm and beef up its transportation practice. One of the firm’s partners told the newspaper Legal Times last week that Burnley would do work for Eastern and Continental.

At the time he was ruling on the petition, Burnley had filed a statement disqualifying himself from “any particular matter” involving Shaw Pittman.