Former FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy is joining Wilkinson Barker Knauer in Washington. She will provide strategic counsel on legal and policy issues.

Abernathy has most recently been EVP and chief legal officer at Frontier Communications. She announced her April 2017 retirement from the company last December.

It will be a homecoming for Abernathy, who was a partner at the firm when she was tapped by President George W. Bush for the FCC--she served from May 2001 to December 2005, returning to the firm following her tenure.

Abernathy is also a former advisor to then FCC commissioner Sherrie Marshall and the late commissioner and chairman, James Quello.

Abernathy was on the FCC under then-chairman Michael Powell, now head of NCTA: The Internet & Television Association, and after leaving the FCC was on the short list to head the National Association of Broadcasters, a job that ultimately went to Sen. Gordon Smith.