Harriet Ellan Miers (born August 10, 1945) is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007. A member of the Republican Party since 1988, she previously served as White House Staff Secretary from 2001 to 2003 and White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy from 2003 until 2005. In 2005, Miers was nominated by Bush to be an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, but—in the face of bipartisan opposition—asked Bush to withdraw her nomination. Following her withdrawal in 2007, Miers returned to private practice, becoming a partner in the litigation and public policy group at Locke Lord. Early life and education Miers was born in Dallas and spent most of her life there until she moved to Washington, D.C., (2001) to work in the Bush administration. She has described herself as a "Texan through and through." She is the fourth of the five children of real estate investor Harris Wood Miers Sr., and his wife, the former Erma (Sally) Grace Richardson. Miers graduated from Hillcrest High School in Dallas in 1963. Miers entered Southern Methodist University intending to become a teacher. The economic plight of her family was so dire that she almost dropped out in her freshman year, but she was able to find part-time work that put her through college. Then, her father had a debilitating stroke. When a lawyer helped organize her family's financial situation, Miers was inspired to enter law school. In 1967, Miers graduated from Southern Methodist University with a bachelor's degree in mathematics. In 1970, she graduated from its Dedman School of Law with a Juris Doctor degree (1970). Career In the summer of 1969, between her second and third years of law school, Miers worked as a clerk for Belli, Ashe, Ellison, Choulos & Lieff, the San Francisco law firm founded by Melvin Belli. Miers was immersed in tort law. Her supervisor was Robert Lieff, then a partner in the Belli firm and later a founder of the nationally prominent plaintiffs' law firm Lieff Cabraser. In a 2005 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle, Lieff stated that Miers "saw what we did for people who needed to get a lawyer and were only able to get a lawyer by a contingent fee." After graduating from law school, from 1970 to