Miller to join lobbying company

Thursday, June 16, 2005 | 11:10 a.m.

Former Gov. Bob Miller will leave his position as a stockholder with the law firm of Jones Vargas and will head the Las Vegas office of Dutko Worldwide, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm.

Miller will end his tenure at Jones Vargas and will start in his new role on July 1. He said he has already been affiliated with Dutko for the past four years working as a lobbyist while also working at Jones Vargas.

He said the split from Jones Vargas is a friendly one.

"I'll maintain my license to practice law," Miller said. "I'm certainly not out there to compete in the legal field with Jones Vargas."

Dutko Worldwide is one of the top 10 lobbying firms in Washington D.C., Miller said. The firm focuses its lobbying efforts at the federal, state and international levels of government in the areas of health care, transportation, technology, homeland security, energy, telecommunications, education, finance and housing.

He said the firm is interested in growing its prospects in Las Vegas as well as around the world and the Las Vegas office will have a role in that. The firm also has offices in Boston, Denver, Miami and Tallahassee, Fla, in the U.S. and in Brussels, Prague, Vienna and Manila overseas.

"I think there's no sense in getting into it unless you hope to grow," Miller said. "I'm going to run the office here in Vegas because a lot of clients of Dutko have national scope that want to do business in Las Vegas. We're helping to set some of that structure."

Miller is involved in business development in Mexico, Romania, Latvia, China and Bulgaria and is an honorary co-chair of the Russian Heritage Highway Project with former Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and he also serves as the Honorary Counsel General of Bulgaria.