Former Sen. Slade Gorton (R-Wash.), who had been a lobbyist with K&L Gates, has opened his own shop, Slade Gorton LLC.

His first registered lobbying client is a familiar one: his old firm. It’s a reflection, he said, of the good terms on which he departed.

K&L Gates, he explained, has a rule prohibiting its employees from serving on corporate boards. Gorton, in July, joined the board of Bellevue, Wash.’s Clearwire Corp. In order to take the board position, he had to leave the firm since K&L Gates did not grant him a waiver.

Like Clearwire, Gorton’s new shop is based in Bellevue. K&L Gates, he said, “turned around and contracted me as a consultant for much of the same clients.”

His registered lobbying clients at K&L Gates included the American Institute of Architects, Pitney Bowes and Dell Computer Corp.

When he was at K&L Gates, Gorton spent about one three-day period each month in D.C., he said, and was primarily working out of the firm’s Seattle office.