The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

D.C. Court of Appeals Orders En Banc Hearing

The D.C. Court of Appeals this week announced it will sit as a full court to explore the rights criminal defendants have to inspect juror records, including whether the burden to access the confidential documents is too high.

Two men are challenging their conviction in an armed robbery case, and they claim that the Superior Court system for selecting jurors violates due process rights and infringes on the D.C. Jury System Act (2001). The defendants sought to challenge the fairness of the jury pool, but were denied access to juror records.

Lawyers for the defendants argue the Superior Court system of selecting jurors produces panels that exclude blacks, and thus do not reflect a fair cross-section of the community. The defendants, Larry Gause and Karlepa Wilkey, were convicted and imprisoned for their roles in robbing a 63-year-old man at gunpoint in 2005.

The court appointed George Washington University Law School professor Peter Meyers to argue for Wilkey. A D.C. Public Defender Service attorney, Mikel-Meredith Weidman, represented Gause. The Public Defender service took the lead in arguing for greater, easier access to jury pool records, which include the name, age, race, and occupation of qualified prospective jurors. Weidman could not be reached for comment; Meyers applauds the D.C. Court of Appeals for voting to take up the dispute as a full court.

Former U.S. Attorney Joins Hughes Hubbard & Reed

Hughes Hubbard & Reed has picked up former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Missouri John Wood as a partner in the firm's litigation practice in Washington. Wood started work at the firm on Monday.

Wood, who served as U.S. attorney from 2007 until Feb. 28, will focus his practice on internal corporate investigations and advising clients on issues stemming from the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

"With the change in administration, I figured it was time to make a change," Wood says. He says U.S. attorneys were asked by President Barack Obama to stay on for a period of time, which he says was helpful in easing the transition to his acting successor, Matt Whitworth, who had been Wood's first assistant U.S. attorney.

While U.S. Attorney, Wood says he oversaw a number of cases with a strong international element to them, including charges of importation of tainted pet food ingredients from China; alleged money laundering by former Rep. Mark Deli Siljander (R-Mich); international tax fraud; and steroid trafficking.

"We had a really surprising number of cases with an international focus even though Kansas City is almost the exact center point of the country," Wood says. "That background really fits well with Hughes Hubbard's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act practice."

Prior to his stint as U.S. attorney, Wood served as chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security under former Secretary Michael Chertoff. (Chertoff recently joined Covington & Burling. Click here for more on that). He has also served as deputy associate attorney general and counselor to the attorney general at the Justice Department. At the White House, Wood served as deputy general counsel for the Office of Management & Budget.

Morning Wrap

Green Light for Bias Suit Against Law Firm: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled that a sex discrimination and harassment lawsuit brought by Alyson Kirleis against the Pittsburgh firm Dickie McCarney and Chilcote could proceed in court, rejecting assertions by the firm that it should go to arbitration. This story in the Legal Intelligencer says the court found that Kirleis never agreed to arbitration when she became partner.

Questions Raised on Possible U.S. Attorney: Neil MacBride is former counsel to then-Sen. Joseph Biden, and is currently an associate deputy attorney general. But because his resume also includes lobbying for computer companies, the Washington Post is reporting that some are wondering whether he should now be a leading contender for the post of U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria.

Big Tobacco News Item 1: The New York Times spotlights the work of a young associate at Davis Polk & Wardwell named Kirsten Rutnik -- now Gillibrand -- who helped Philip Morris fend off prosecutors' requests for documents in the 1990s. Now Democratic senator from New York, Gillibrand declined to talk to the Times about that part of her legal career.

Big Tobacco News Item 2: After losing two big damage verdicts brought by Florida smokers, tobacco companies won one Wednesday when a St. Petersburg jury cleared Altria and R.J. Reynolds in a case brought by a widow whose husband died of lung cancer. According to this report from The American Lawyer via law.com, the defense pointed to medical records in which the deceased told his doctors he did not want to stop smoking.

Scalia, the Laugh Leader: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is generating far more laughter during oral argument this term than any other justice. Over at the DC Dicta blog, which keeps a running tally based on the laughter notations in oral argument transcipts, Scalia weighs in with 36 laugh lines, Stephen Breyer at 30, and John Roberts Jr. at 26. This is one contest Justice Clarence Thomas is not going to win; he hasn't uttered a word, funny or otherwise, during oral argument in more than three years.

A Busy April for Civil Rights Litigation at the Supreme Court

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.'s original plan for the current Supreme Court term was to frontload arguments at the beginning last fall, leaving fewer cases to be argued and decided this spring. The goal was to alleviate the workload crunch in May and June before adjournment. It didn't quite work out that way. Ten cases are set for argument in late April, and as John Payton put it today, four of them are "very significant civil rights cases" involving issues where discrimination persists: voting rights, employment, access to home mortgages, and education. So much for an easy spring at the Supreme Court.

Payton is president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), and he came to D.C. to brief reporters on that array of civil rights cases. Leading off is Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder, a frontal challenge to the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act, which Payton described as "the most important and transformative civil rights act in our history." A local district is seeking to get out from under the act's Section 5 preclearance requirements. If it isn't allowed to do so, the district argues the law is unconstitutional. "It's the most important case nobody has heard of," said Debo Adegbile, the LDF's litigation director, who successfully defended the law before a three-judge panel of U.S. District Court in D.C.  

The case will be argued April 29, and could mark new Solicitor General Elena Kagan's debut at the high court lectern. Adegbile said the government has asked for divided argument time, meaning one of several intervenors including LDF could share the half hour with Kagan or whomever else she assigns to defend the law.

Dechert Cuts 63 Attorneys, 62 Staff

Dechert announced earlier today that it would be laying off 63 attorneys and 62 administrative staff members across its 18 offices.

While the firm would not say how many of those would be in Washington, a Dechert spokeswoman confirmed that the firm’s 85-lawyer D.C. office was not left unscathed. The firm has over 900 lawyers worldwide.

The firm has had several rounds of layoffs since the beginning of 2008. In March of last year, the firm laid off 13 associates across the U.S. In December, Dechert laid of 72 staff members. Today's announcement adds to the 17 associates, 10 staff attorneys, and 2 counsel already pink slipped in 2009.

In a firmwide e-mail, Dechert chairman Barton Winokur attributed the cuts to the increasingly familiar and unpleasant refrain of “decreased market demand for legal services worldwide.”

The Legal Intelligencer has more here.

Here is Winokur’s e-mail:

In light of the decreased market demand for legal services worldwide, we are planning to reduce the number of lawyers and other time keepers in the firm by 63 and administrative staff by 62. Some of these individuals are being given notice today, and we are beginning the required consultation process with others. The reductions affect offices in the United States, Europe and Asia. Needless to say, we are taking these steps reluctantly and with great regret. None of these decisions has been made easily because we know how difficult it is to find new jobs in this challenging economic environment. We thank all these individuals for their contributions to the firm over the years.

D.C. Federal Courts Honor Pro Bono Work in Washington

The economic crisis may be taking its toll on law firms across Washington, but that hasn’t stopped 26 firms from logging a record-setting number of pro bono hours.

In recognition of that effort this morning, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia hosted the sixth annual “Forty at Fifty Judicial Pro Bono Recognition” breakfast to honor firms that had 40 percent of their lawyers contribute 50 or more hours of pro bono work. This year 26 of the 109 firms that have offices in D.C. with at least 25 lawyers met that requirement and logged a combined 27,000 hours of pro bono work. Last year, 21 firms met the “40 at 50” benchmark.

“The law firms are really stepping up on pro bono work, and it’s so necessary in today’s economic environment,” says Judge Rosemary Collyer, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Law firms are feeling the pinch of the times, but they’re still managing to make time to show their commitment to pro bono work.”

This year marked the first time the celebration honored firms that had at least 40 percent of its partners meet the 50-hour benchmark. The firms that received a special mention included DLA Piper; Gilbert Oshinsky; Jenner & Block; Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal; and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

Chief Judge Royce Lamberth, of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and Chief Judge David Sentelle, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, addressed the crowd of about 50 people who gathered for the celebration and congratulated Washington attorneys for their continued commitment to pro bono work.

Sentelle (pictured right) notes that when lawyers work with a client on a pro bono basis, they’re “helping the rest of the world.”

“There is nothing wrong with making money, and I wouldn’t besmirch that for attorneys at all,” Sentelle says. “But at the end of your career, when you’re talking to your children and your grandchildren, Is it enough to say you made a lot of money or that you made your billable hours? Or would you rather say you helped a widow stay in her home, or kept an innocent person out of jail?”

Lamberth took time to congratulate his former clerk Thomas Perrelli, President Barack Obama’s new associate attorney general and the former managing partner of Jenner & Block’s Washington office, for entering government and going on “a pro bono kick of a different sort.” (To read more about Perrelli’s successor Michael DeSanctis, click here).

Lamberth also roguishly applauded Wilmer Hale’s success in their pro bono work for several Guantanamo Bay detainees. The firm’s Supreme Court victory in Boumediene v. Bush granted habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo Bay prisoners and allowed them to challenge their detention in U.S. federal courts

“In the case of Boumediene v. Bush, Wilmer Hale is the firm that won in the Supreme Court and ruined my life,” Lamberth joked. “Since June 12, I’ve been thanking Wilmer Hale every day.”

See more photos of the event after the jump.

Michael Chertoff Joins Covington

Michael Chertoff, most recently secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, has joined Covington & Burling’s white-collar defense and investigations practice, reports the AmLaw Daily. He is now senior of counsel in the Washington office, where he started earlier this week.
 
“I’m really looking forward to coming back as a working lawyer, not just as a rainmaker,” Chertoff tells AmLaw. “And while it’s been a bit of a transition [this week], I’m happy to be doing real legal work as I genuinely love being a lawyer.”
 
Chertoff held several prominent positions in the George W. Bush administration. He was a partner at Latham & Watkins before Bush asked him to become assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division in 2001. While at Justice, Chertoff took a lead role in drafting the USA Patriot Act. In 2003, Bush nominated him to become a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and nearly two years later, Chertoff became Secretary of Homeland Security.
 
The complete AmLaw story is available here. 

3 Top Justice Department Nominees Move Forward

The Senate Judiciary Committee this morning endorsed three of President Barack Obama’s nominees for top positions at the Justice Department, and senators signaled they’re moving closer to agreement on expansive changes to the nation’s patent system.

Senators didn’t bother with roll call votes for the three nominees: Covington & Burling partner Lanny Breuer for assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division; Hogan & Hartson partner Christine Varney for assistant attorney general for the Antitrust Division; and Morrison Foerster partner Tony West for assistant attorney general for the Civil Division.

Confirmation votes by the full Senate have not been scheduled.

Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) praised all three for their willingness to take significant cuts in pay to work at the Justice Department. “Every administration has to have people who are willing to come from the private sector — certainly not for the salaries that are paid in government service, but because it is important,” he said.

Only one senator, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), the committee’s top Republican, expressed any reservation over the nominees. He criticized Varney for what he called “incomplete answers” to his written questions; in many of her answers (pdf), she declined to give specifics and instead promised to work with other administration officials, learn more about an issue, or “vigorously enforce” the antitrust laws.

“I want more answers from nominees. I want to know where they stand,” Specter said.

The Judiciary Committee today also made technical amendments to patent legislation that would be the first major overhaul of the patent system in decades, but senators put off a vote on the full bill until Tuesday at the earliest. Leahy had pushed for a vote today, but a bipartisan group of senators wanted more time to negotiate key provisions, including the process for determining damages in patent infringement cases. Several senators said an agreement could be imminent.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), whose state is rich in industries with a large stake in the legislation, blamed the high-tech industry for not demonstrating “a willingness to move from its position on damages.” She has pushed for codifying what are known as the Georgia-Pacific factors, a group of 15 factors dating to a 1970 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Feinstein called for compromise among all interests. “I am willing to make changes. I am not wedded to codifying Georgia-Pacific,” she said.

Jenner & Block Taps New D.C. Managing Partner

Jenner & Block’s Washington office has a new managing partner. Michael DeSanctis officially assumed the role this week, in the wake of former D.C. head Thomas Perrelli’s departure for the Justice Department, where he was recently sworn in as associate attorney general.

DeSanctis has spent his entire career at Jenner. He’s a partner in the litigation department, and focuses on representing entertainment industry clients in copyright matters. He currently represents Viacom, Inc. in its copyright infringement suit against YouTube and Google, and says he plans to maintain an active law practice while also serving as D.C. managing partner. “All of our prior managing partners have been able to do it,” he says.

DeSanctis acknowledges that the responsibility of taking on a leadership role is even weightier in a struggling economy. “Obviously, it’s a challenging time in the economy, and it’s a time when this firm and all firms really have to be managed well,” he says. “It’s a time when firm management is really going to make a difference.”

Jenner has not been spared by the tough market. The firm announced last week that it laid off 34 staff in the Chicago and Washington offices. DeSanctis says the number of employees affected in D.C. was in the “low single digits.” He says that no lawyers have been let go, and the firm does not plan to do additional layoffs.

D.C. headcount has also been hit by the Obama administration. In addition to Perelli, a number of other Washington lawyers have left for the Justice Department, including former partner Donald Verrilli Jr., who is now associate deputy attorney general, and former partner Sam Hirsch, who is deputy associate attorney general.

Though DeSanctis says he misses having his old friends around the office, he says the departures are largely positive.  “It’s wonderful, and very exciting to have such deep contacts at such high levels of the administration.” He adds that the office has not lost any business because of the departures. “We still have wonderful superstars like [litigation partners] Paul Smith and Steven Fabrizio, and others, who the clients have been looking to just as much as they looked to Don and Tom.”

Gibson, Dunn Representing Former AIG Executive

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher is representing a former executive of American International Group who has taken the brunt of the blame for the company’s trading in credit default swaps, a congressional aide says.

An aide to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform says that Michael Bopp, a partner in the firm’s D.C. office, is representing Joseph Cassano, who led AIG’s financial products division in London. Cassano has been singled out for his role in the firm’s downfall, and the committee aide confirms a report that lawmakers are interested in learning more about him. It has not been determined yet whether Cassano will testify before the committee, the aide says.

Bopp served as associate director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2006 to 2008 and previously was staff director and chief counsel to the Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He did not return a call requesting comment.

F. Joseph Warin, chair of the litigation department in Gibson, Dunn’s D.C. office, has also been mentioned as a lawyer for Cassano. He did not return a call requesting comment.

A former chief executive of AIG, Hank Greenberg, is expected to appear before the House oversight committee next week. David Boies and Nicholas Gravante Jr. of Boies, Schiller & Flexner have been representing Greenberg.

UPDATE: Bopp, Warin and associate Michael Hissam published a paper a month ago titled "A Busy Congress for Investigations." Read their tips here.