WASHINGTON  Chiquita was facing the prospect of federal charges for paying protection money to Colombian terrorists to safeguard its banana crops, and the company needed help. It turned to Eric H. Holder Jr., an elite Washington lawyer well versed in the ways of the Justice Department.  Doug Mills/The New York Times  Eric H. Holder Jr., a well-established Washington lawyer, is Barack Obamas choice to take over at the Justice Department.  The latest on the presidential transition and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.  “We were in an extraordinarily difficult position,” James E. Thompson, the general counsel for Chiquita, recalled in an interview last week. As a former prosecutor, Mr. Holder “carries a level of credibility with him, and that’s a valuable commodity,” he said.  Mr. Holder, now President-elect Barack Obama’s pick for attorney general, made his name publicly during a quarter-century in government service, first as a corruption prosecutor, then as a judge, and finally as the second-ranking official in the Clinton Justice Department. But it is as a power lawyer in Washington over the last eight years that Mr. Holder, 57, has made his wealth, as well as a reputation as a legal fixer for clients in crisis.  The Senate Judiciary Committee is to begin confirmation hearings on Mr. Holder on Thursday, and if he is confirmed he will take over at the Justice Department with perhaps the most extensive private practice of any attorney general in modern times. Colleagues and admirers see his impressive range of work as a sign of a lawyer who has seen the law from all sides.  But some Republicans plan to press Mr. Holder about what they view as the potential conflicts of interest posed by his client list and how he would go about deciding whether to bow out of issues that come before him involving past clients, staff members said. Others question how his corporate ties would affect his work at the Justice Department.  “We’ve had eight years of an administration that turned a blind eye to corporate criminals,” said Terry Collingsworth, a Washington lawyer who is suing Chiquita over the Colombian protection money and is facing Mr. Holder in the case. “We need someone with his level of experience and cachet to clean up the Justice Department. Yet I do have a concern and I sure hope that he doesn’t carry over his corporate defense practice into his approach to the job and how he handles these types of cases.”  When the National Football League was facing a legal and public-relations disaster in 2007 over a dogfighting scandal involving the Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, it turned to Mr. Holder to help navigate the maelstrom and represent the league. The pharmaceutical giant Merck tapped him as its lawyer in a Medicaid overbilling case that ended in a $671 million civil settlement. And Rod R. Blagojevich, the now-impeached governor of Illinois, picked him, albeit briefly, to investigate for the state a controversy over a casino development and its possible ties to organized crime.  Already, Mr. Holder’s brief association with Mr. Blagojevich has drawn scrutiny from Republicans, who are waging a more spirited campaign against Mr. Holder’s nomination than many had anticipated. Until now, most of the scrutiny has focused on controversies during the nominee’s time as deputy attorney general at the end of the Clinton administration, particularly his role in the pardon of the fugitive financier Marc Rich.  In responding to written questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Holder made no mention of a 2004 announcement in which Mr. Blagojevich introduced him as a “special investigator” under a $300,000 contract with the state.  The appointment fell through, and Mr. Holder’s aides said his failure to mention the episode had been an oversight that was soon corrected. But some Republicans said they were troubled by the omission. Three Republican senators on the Judiciary Committee  Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, John Cornyn of Texas and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa  sent the governor’s office a Freedom of Information Act request last week seeking documents on the aborted agreement.  Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, sharply questioned Mr. Holder’s character and political independence in a speech last week on the Senate floor. Mr. Specter told reporters Friday that he wanted to see more information about Mr. Holder’s private practice, to assess whether he was up to the job of attorney general.  “Covington & Burling is a very prominent, prestigious firm,” Mr. Specter said. He said Republican investigators had not yet found anything untoward in Mr. Holder’s private practice, but added, “We’re looking through all his records.”  Mr. Holder’s record in private practice has received much less attention than his earlier work at the Justice Department, particularly his role in Mr. Clinton’s 2001 pardon of Mr. Rich. Mr. Holder is being scrutinized as well over his role in other Clinton-era controversies, including clemency granted by Mr. Clinton for 16 members of a militant Puerto Rican nationalist group and the Justice Department’s refusal to appoint an independent counsel to examine possible campaign finance abuses by the White House.  With Senate Republicans challenging Mr. Holder’s nomination, a string of well-known lawyers from both parties have come to his defense with testimonials in recent days, citing both his record at the Justice Department and in private practice as evidence of his strong qualifications.  In a letter of support to the Judiciary Committee last Wednesday Louis J. Freeh, who was director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation before becoming general counsel of MBNA America Bank, told of hiring Mr. Holder as the trial counsel on a complicated case that he won for Mr. Freeh’s company.
Republicans plan to press Eric Holder, the attorney general nominee, about his past work as a high-priced Washington lawyer.