Ralph Baxter, Jr. has confirmed that he is considering a run for the West Virginia U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Jay Rockefeller in 2014.

The confirmation came in an interview with West Virginia radio personality Hoppy Kercheval on Wednesday, during which the outgoing chairman of Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, said, “like any citizen I want to serve the state of West Virginia and so in that way I am interested.”  But Baxter, who is a Democrat, quickly added, ” . . . I’m a long way from having any idea that I will run.”

For more than two decades, Baxter, 66, has been chairman of Orrick, but at a partner meeting in January 2011, he announced that he would step down at the end of 2013. In October, Orrick announced that Silicon Valley–based corporate partner Mitchell Zuklie will succeed Baxter as chairman.

In an interview with The American Lawyer magazine last year, Baxter said his decision to step down was promoted by a desire ” . . . to do something else.” While at the time of the interview Baxter wasn’t sure (or just wasn’t saying) what that “ something else” would be, it is becoming more clear that it will be centered around West Virginia.

Baxter was traveling and not available for comment, but in an interview with a local West Virginia newspaper published Thursday, Baxter said that upon his departure from the chairmanship of Orrick, he and his family will relocate full-time to a home he owns on Hamilton Avenue in Wheeling, West Virginia.

During Wednesday’s radio interview, Baxter said, whether he ran for the U.S. Senate seat or not, he would focus on improving the lives of West Virginia residents. “God has blessed me, and I want to give something back and I want to give it back to West Virginia,” Baxter said.

Baxter, who sits on the West Virginia Workforce Investment Council and the Board of Directors of the West Virginia Education Alliance, said his focus would be on education. “I am very concerned that we are not doing enough to prepare our students for the jobs of the 21st century,” Baxter said during the radio appearance. Upon his departure from Orrick’s chairmanship, Baxter plans to go on a fact-finding mission of the state’s schools.

Baxter’s political ambitions have been much speculated about in both San Francisco, where Orrick is based, and West Virginia, where he grew up and where in 2002 Orrick opened a global operations center.