Daley aide helps firm; firm hires Daley aide

The Chicago Tribune reports:

When a former top aide to Mayor Richard Daley quit last summer amid a federal probe into city hiring practices, he quickly landed consulting work at one of the nation's top securities-fraud law firms.

Records and interviews now reveal the New York firm's partners had been wooing John Doerrer for years, even as he helped them get city pension business worth more than $5 million.

Doerrer, 50, the former head of the city's beleaguered Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, said his City Hall connections played no role in the law firm winning business.

"The bottom line is, I've done nothing wrong," Doerrer said. "I never asked anyone to hire anyone. I never exerted any influence. I made introductions, and that's all I did."

The city's revolving-door ethics law prohibiting employees from working for city contractors for one year after they resign doesn't apply, Doerrer said, because his city role had nothing to do with pension funds.

The Chicago Way.