He then became a member of the New York City law firm of Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Alexander, Guthrie & Mitchell for two years.
Sears played a pivotal role [clarification needed] at the 1968 Republican National Convention, in securing Nixon's nomination for the presidency.
He was only 28 at the time and was subsequently shut out of the Nixon campaign operation by John Mitchell (a partner from his law firm), who considered him overly ambitious.
Sears then left the White House, to join the law firm of Gadsby & Hannah, in Washington, DC, where he worked from 1970-76.
Sears had run the national operation out of Washington and was a rival of Edwin Meese, Michael Deaver, and Lyn Nofziger in California.
[2] In the 1980s, Sears was "the highest paid" American lobbyist for South Africa's apartheid regime, "commanding an annual fee of $500,000.