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John A. Boehner, the former speaker of the House who left Congress and his leadership post last year, is joining Squire Patton Boggs, a Washington-based law firm long known for its lobbying work.
However, Mr. Boehner, who served as speaker for four years and as a Republican representative from Ohio for 24 years, will not lobby in his new role at the law firm. Instead, he will serve “as a strategic adviser to clients” in the United States and abroad on global business development, according to the firm’s announcement.
“I left the private sector and got into public service decades ago because I wanted to help remove government barriers to economic growth and job creation, and that’s still the mission that drives me,” Mr. Boehner said in a statement on Tuesday.
This month, Mr. Boehner, a cigarette smoker, was appointed to the board of the tobacco giant Reynolds American, which is currently fending off more regulation of the industry, including regulation of e-cigarettes. He is to serve on the board’s committee for corporate governance, nominating and sustainability.
He has kept a relatively low profile since stepping down from the Republican leadership in September 2015, drawing occasional attention, as when he described Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, as “Lucifer in the flesh.”
In April, Mr. Boehner made a surprise video appearance with President Obama — with whom he had scorching political battles, including a lawsuit House Republicans filed accusing the president of abuse of his official powers — in a humorous vignette for the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
In it, Mr. Boehner offered a cigarette to President Obama, who once smoked but says he gave it up; he stuck to that stance in the video.
In his new law firm role, Mr. Boehner will not be working with political adversaries but with a cadre of his former staff members. They include two longtime aides, John Criscuolo and Amy Lozupone, who will join the firm, forming a team that also includes the former speaker’s deputy chief of staff, Dave Schnittger, and former policy adviser, Natasha Hammond.
