New Member is Top Washington Insider

In Washington political and legal circles, Judith Richards Hope is known as the consummate insider, relying on personal connections and political savvy to make her way in a male-dominated world.

The Harvard Corporation's first woman member, Hope is described by those who know her as a pragmatist whose successful career as a practicing lawyer has been accompanied by an equally long association with Republican politics.

A "high-ranking member of the Washington establishment," Hope takes a realistic approach to political problems, said James Cannon, who worked with Hope in the Ford Administration.

Hope, 48, is a long-time Republican party activist who friends have a hard time categorizing as either a moderate or a conservative. "She is politically a conservative," said Cannon, "but compassionate as a person."

Hope, who has never held elective office, first held a political post in 1975, when former President Gerald R. Ford appointed her as a domestic policy adviser.

"Judy is a realist," Cannon said. "She is very good at the conceptual approach to government, the practical side to government."

A partner in the Washington office of the law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky, and Walker, Hope served as general counsel for the presidential campaign of Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) last year. In 1984, she acted as national co-chair of Lawyers for Reagan/Bush.

While some colleagues consider Hope a brilliant lawyer, other Washington observers say she is a shrewd, charismatic networker whose ability to develop personal connections overshadows her legal talent.

"She's a pragmatic person," said Robert G. Lane, chair of Paul, Hastings' four-member executive committee. "She knows what it takes to get the job done."

Hope is the first--and only--woman to sit on her firm's executive committee.

Despite her long career in Republican politics, Hope has rarely taken a public stand on specific issues. In an interview yesterday, she said she has not yet formulated a position on many Harvard questions, including the issue of University divestment from its $230.9 million in South Africa-related holdings.

"I can tell you that I am very opposed to apartheid, but the divestment issue is very complicated," Hope said. "I certainly think it is something we [members of the Corporation] have to address."

Last spring, Hope drew attention when she was nominated by then-President Ronald Reagan to replace outgoing federal judge and unsuccessful U.S. Supreme Court nominee Robert H. Bork. Hope's appointment was opposed by congressional Democrats, who wished to postpone the selection in the hopes that a Democratic presidential victory would allow the appointment of a liberal.

In the wake of Hope's nomination, Legal Times, a weekly Washington newspaper, called her "a consummate Washington insider, the kind of establishment Republican that the president has often shunned in favor of young, movement conservatives."

Hope's nomination was never considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dole had planned to renominate her for a federal judgeship this year, but Hope contacted him last week and asked that she not be considered, a spokesperson for the senator said.

Hope is a close friend of both Dole and his wife, Labor Secretary Elizabeth H. Dole, whom she has known since they were both students at the Law School, Cannon said. Former President Ford is another political ally, he added.

Hope, whose specialty is transportation law, has long been active in the corporate world. She currently serves on the boards of the Budd Company and the Union Pacific Corporation, and has held several other top business posts.

A founding member and past president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, Hope's clients have included Missouri Pacific Railroad and Air Florida, as well as actress Brooke Shields and the family of the late billionaire J. Paul Getty. Her billings reportedly account for nearly half the business generated by her firm's Washington office.

A magna cum laude graduate of Wellesley College, the Ohio-born Hope graduated from the Law School in 1964. Her classmates there included Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.), whom she still counts among her closest friends.

Hope met her husband, Anthony J. Hope, son of comedian Bob Hope, while he was also attending the Law School. Anthony Hope, also a lawyer, ran unsuccessfully for Congress in California's 21st district in 1986. The Hopes' son, Zachary, is a Harvard sophomore.