Mr. Goldstein is returning to the small practice he ran with his wife, Amy Howe, out of their Washington home before joining Akin Gump five years ago. But the new Goldstein Howe & Russell “will have a different profile than the old one,” Mr. Goldstein says. “The old firm did more than half its work pro bono, and this one won’t.”

Ms. Howe will continue to focus on pro bono work, while Mr. Goldstein will primarily practice commercial litigation. He says he the move was necessitated by conflicts between one of his principal clients and other Akin Gump clients; one of his key clients, eager to retain Mr. Goldstein’s services, agreed to finance his move back to a small practice.

Mr. Goldstein won’t identify the client, but he currently has a half dozen cases pending at the Supreme Court, as well as a specialty that grew out of a favorite pastime–poker. Mr. Goldstein is representing poker interests against state regulators seeking to put the game out of business.