The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Obama Picks Another Ambassador From Big Law

An environmental lawyer and consultant who is a former partner in the D.C. office of Patton Boggs has been nominated for ambassador to Costa Rica.

Anne Slaughter Andrew is now president of New Energy Nexus, an energy consulting company she founded, according to the company’s Web site. Besides working at Patton Boggs, she has been co-chair of the environment and energy practice at Indianapolis-based Baker & Daniels and of counsel at Indianapolis-based Bingham McHale. The White House said today that her nomination has been sent to the Senate.

Andrew (Georgetown, Indiana Law) has served as an Indiana trustee for the Nature Conservancy and on an advisory council for the group, the White House said. She also contributed about $30,000 to Democratic causes during the 2008 election cycle, according to records kept by the Center for Responsive Politics. Andrew did not return a call requesting comment.

Other Big Law partners whom President Barack Obama has chosen for ambassadors, and who have been confirmed, include Williams & Connolly’s Laurie Fulton for Denmark, Mayer Brown’s Mark Gitenstein for Romania, Williams & Connolly’s Howard Gutman for Belgium, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal’s David Jacobson for Canada, and Foley Hoag’s Barry White for Norway.

UPDATE (5:37 p.m.): The Hotline has more here on Andrew's husband, Joe, who helped Obama in Indiana's Democratic primary last year.

Judge Says Virginia Violated Rights of Overseas Voters

Virginia’s state government violated the rights of overseas voters by failing to mail out their absentee ballots at least 30 days before the 2008 election, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

U.S. District Judge Richard Williams of the Eastern District of Virginia found that the state ran afoul of the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act when it sent more than 2,000 ballots to overseas servicemen and civilians after the 30-day deadline. Many of those ballots were not counted because the state election board did not receive them back by the close of polls on election day. The judge ordered the state to count the votes, even though they wouldn’t change the outcome of the election, and gave officials 20 days to concoct a plan for doing so.

The suit was originally brought by the McCain-Palin presidential campaign on Nov. 3. The Justice Department joined on Nov. 14.

“The men and women who bravely put their lives on the line to serve their nation deserve, at the very least, to know that their votes will be counted, and their voices will be heard,” said Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division, in a press release. “I am gratified the Court acted so decisively to uphold the right of those serving our country in uniform and other citizens living abroad to vote, and I applaud the attorneys and staff in the Voting Section for their hard work on this case to protect that right.”

Judge Gives OK to Examine GMU Professor's Job Record in Harassment Case

A federal magistrate judge today compelled former employers of a George Mason University law professor accused of sexual harassment to produce employment records that were subpoenaed by his accuser last month.

Magistrate Judge T. Rawles Jones Jr. of the Eastern District of Virginia denied the defense’s motion for a protective order. He ruled that Bingham McCutcheon and the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia must hand over records of Joseph Zengerle’s previous employment there going back to 1981. But the judge held off ruling on records from Zengerle’s time at the nonprofit Disabled American Veterans.

Kyndra Rotunda, former director of a GMU legal assistance clinic for military service members, has accused Zengerle, the clinic’s executive director, of sexual harassment, retaliation and common-law assault and battery. The university and Daniel Polsby, the law school’s dean, are also named in the suit and accused of pay discrimination.

For more on the case, see the National Law Journal’s earlier coverage.

Washington solo practitioner Rick Seymour, who represents Rotunda, contended in court that Zengerle had been fired from three previous jobs. Zengerle has denied it.

“That goes directly to his credibility in this case,” especially if past incidences of sexual harassment show up on his record, Seymour said.

Seymour is also seeking salary records to back up a claim that Rotunda was underpaid because of her gender. Defense attorney Jeffrey Huvelle of Washington-based Covington & Burling argued that past payment records are irrelevant to the case because “what wasn’t known to the people at the university doesn’t matter.”

More generally, Huvelle said that the plaintiff’s discovery requests are “abusive and intrusive” and that Zengerle should not be “subjected to that kind of scrutiny.” “What he’s trying to do is issue subpoenas over the 20-year career of this individual to see if there’s anything he can find to impugn his reputation,” Huvelle said. “This case shouldn’t be turned on a pivot to find anything possible to discredit Mr. Zengerle.”

Judge Jones was largely unconvinced by the defense’s arguments, finding the records at issue “related to the claim of the plaintiff.”

Disabled American Veterans, where Zengerle worked in the early 1990s, is exempt from the court’s ruling until the judge can examine a confidentiality agreement that the group and Zengerle are said to have signed. A hearing on the issue is set for next week.

Lawyer Charged With Lying About Knowledge of Pump and Dump Scheme

Federal prosecutors have charged a New York-based lawyer and businessman with obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to investigators during their inquiry into a questionable stock sale.

According to a criminal information filed yesterday at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Robert Brown, a partner with New World Merchant Partners, tried to conceal his knowledge of a possible "pump and dump" scheme involving executives from an unnamed investment banking firm in Newport Beach, Calif.

Prosecutors say Brown's activities took place roughly between January 2004 and January 2008, while Brown was a name partner with New York’s Reitler Brown & Rosenblatt, now Reitler Kailas & Rosenblatt. Name partner Scott Rosenblatt confirmed that Brown was a former partner, but said that the charges did not involve the firm directly.

“This matter relates to Bob’s personal activities and does not involve any legal services performed by any member or employee of our firm,” Rosenblatt said.

Criminal informations are generally filed when a defendant has agreed to a plea deal with prosecutors. Brown’s lawyer, Arthur Jakoby, a partner with New York-based Herrick, Feinstein, said in a written statement that his client “accepts full responsibility for what he has done” and “looks forward to resolving this matter,” but did not elaborate.

The names of the individual businessmen and corporations are not included in the criminal information. But according to prosecutors, Brown helped his co-conspirators profit from the fraudulent transfer of more than $25 million to a set of limited liability companies.

Later Brown allegedly helped set up a direct mail marketing operation to promote stock controlled by the businessmen, while obscuring their involvement. The stock was later sold through one of the limited liability companies, generating total proceeds of $200,000. According to prosecutors, Brown personally reaped $69,000 from its sale.

In 2007, The Federal Bureau of Investigation began interviewing Brown and a family member about the business dealings of the limited liability company involved in the stock sale.

According to the court documents, Brown lied to investigators by telling them that his interactions with one of the businessmen “had always been honest,” despite his knowledge of their prior fraudulent transactions. In 2008, Brown later told them that it “would not have been apparent” to him that the company under investigation could have been part of the pump and dump plot.

Legal Times Awards Gala Photos Now on Flickr

If you were at the second annual Legal Times Awards Gala at the Ritz Carlton on Tuesday, chances are National Law Journal Photo Editor Diego M. Radzinschi snapped a picture of you at some point in the evening. Have a look at our just-created Flickr page to find your photo. If you weren't there, click the link to see what you missed. 

And just in case you did miss it, here's a recent BLT post about the event. See you next year.

Federal Judge: Ye Gon 'Most Definitely' a Flight Risk

A federal magistrate judge in Washington denied bail yesterday to Zhenli Ye Gon, who is awaiting extradition to face charges in Mexico related to a methamphetamine trafficking conspiracy after the U.S. case against him collapsed.

Magistrate Judge John Facciola said Ye Gon, jailed since his arrest in Maryland in July 2007, is a flight risk. Ye Gon is a native of China and a naturalized citizen of Mexico.

In denying bail, Facciola noted that authorities in Mexico, working with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, found more than $200 million in Ye Gon’s house in Mexico City. Ye Gon said the money was not profit from alleged drug sales but rather cash from a political slush fund that he was asked to hold.

“An individual who had in excess of 200 million U.S. dollars in cash secreted in his home is someone who clearly possesses the means and motive to flee this jurisdiction and thus presents a clear risk of flight,” Facciola said. (At left, a photo of the cash provided courtesy of the DEA.)

The Justice Department and the DEA had heralded the arrest and prosecution of Ye Gon as a victory in the fight against international drug trafficking. But prosecutors this year abandoned the case, citing evidentiary concerns and Mexico’s interest in prosecuting Ye Gon. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissed the indictment with prejudice in August.

Ye Gon’s lawyers, Manuel Retureta and A. Eduardo Balarezo, are fighting extradition and recently asked that their client be released on bail pending the outcome of the extradition litigation. The lawyers argue that bail is justified due to special circumstances including the length of time that Ye Gon has been jailed. Ye Gon has been held in “extremely harsh solitary confinement” for more than two years, Balarezo and Retureta said.

Facciola said that nobody, including Sullivan, has said that the prosecution of Ye Gon was without merit or initiated by “some evil ulterior motive.”

Today, Ye Gon’s lawyers filed court papers urging Facciola to reconsider his decision denying bail. The lawyers said in court papers that Facciola ruled before the defense had filed its supplemental opposition to the government's request that Ye Gon be held pending extradition. The defense said it had until today to file that opposition.

Former Nixon Peabody Lawyer Faces Criminal Charges for Alleged Insider Trading

Federal prosecutors in Washington have accused former Nixon Peabody associate Melissa Mahler, who was hit with civil insider trading charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission last month, of making false statements to SEC investigators.

As The National Law Journal previously reported here, on July 28, 2004 Mahler, then a lawyer for Nixon Peabody in Rochester, N.Y., was asked by client Roger Tichenor, the chief executive officer of Teleplus Consumer Services Inc., to draft a letter of intent involving a potential merger with Rooms.com, an online travel company. Less than an hour later, Mahler was allegedly on the phone with her Florida-based broker, instructing him to buy 10,000 shares of Teleplus for $1,200. Teleplus was trading at 12 cents a share.

When the deal between Teleplus and Rooms.com was announced on July 30, 2004, Mahler allegedly called her broker and instructed him to sell the 10,000 shares of Teleplus for a profit of $5,800. Rooms.com later terminated the letter of intent.

Mahler resigned from Nixon Peabody in January 2005. She is now a solo practitioner in New York.

The federal charges against Mahler, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia yesterday, offer a few more details about the SEC’s investigation. In November 2004, the charges say, the SEC was investigating Mahler for possible insider trading in connection with her purchase and sale of Teleplus stock. The charges do not say how the SEC was alerted to the allegedly illegal activity.

On Nov. 29, 2004, two SEC lawyers interviewed Mahler over the telephone and asked her about the Teleplus trade. In that interview, Mahler allegedly denied that she placed the order and said she only found out about the trade when she received her account statement from her broker. She also said her husband had the authority to make purchases on her account.

The charges say that Mahler knew about the trade, having allegedly made it herself. The charges also say that her husband does not have the authority to make trades on her brokerage account.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges one count of making false statements. Making false statements to a federal investigator is a felony that carries a maximum five-year prison sentence.

Assistant U.S. attorneys Michael Atkinson and Vasu Muthyala and special assistant U.S. attorney for the Fraud and Public Corruption Section Keshia West filed the charges.

Mahler is being represented by Patton Boggs partners Jamie Gardner and Robert Luskin. Gardner said in an interview, "She’s looking forward to resolving the matter and moving on with her life.”

Mahler, who is licensed to practice in New York, does not currently have any disciplinary actions filed against her, according to records filed with the New York State court system. She could not be reached for comment

Isaac Lidsky: From Supreme Court to London for Akin Gump

When we last wrote about Isaac Lidsky in May 2008, he was about begin a clerkship for retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at the Supreme Court. As the first blind person to work as a Supreme Court law clerk, he was excited but seemingly undaunted by the prospect, having blown past other barriers on the road to achievements that would be enviable for any 29-year-old, sighted or not: child actor, Harvard Law School grad, Internet entrepreneur, charitable foundation founder, and an appellate lawyer with a dozen arguments under his belt for the Justice Department.

His year with O'Connor, working also with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, was "everything I hoped for and more -- a phenomenal, incredible experience," Lidsky said Wednesday when we caught up with him in London. He headed there after his clerkship so his wife Dorothy could pursue an educational opportunity she postponed for his clerkship, and also so he could be one of four Temple Bar Scholars. That's a prestigious program sponsored by the American Inns of Court Foundation that brings four young American lawyers to England every year to strengthen ties between the two legal systems.

After his stint with the Temple Bar program ends, Lidsky will begin as an associate at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, working with appellate co-leaders Thomas Goldstein and Patricia Millett. They're in D.C. but he'll work in the firm's London office until his wife's graduate degree program ends in 2010. "He's a great lawyer, and he knows everybody," said Goldstein, who said he "ran, not walked" when he learned Lidsky was interested in the firm. Though as a clerk Lidsky is barred from working on Supreme Court cases for two years, Goldstein said Lidsky will work on other appellate matters in London and in the states. "He'll come back and argue" in lower courts in the U.S., Goldstein said. Lidsky will probably not write for the firm's Scotusblog right away, Goldstein said, because of the two-year bar.

For now, Lidsky is having a blast getting to know the British legal system. He's there at an especially interesting time, as the new Supreme Court is launched as an institution separate from the House of Lords. He was on hand for the opening of the legal year at Westminster Abbey, has met all the new justices and many leading barristers in London, and has spent time in the Blackstone Chambers, a leading human rights firm that does "some pretty cool litigation." Lidsky said, "I'm like a kid at a candy store." As in the states, Lidsky said everyone has been "absolutely sensitive and welcoming" about his visual impairment, the result of retinitis pigmentosa. He credits the Royal National Institute of Blind People for helping him in numerous ways.

Another highlight of his stay in London comes tonight, Lidsky said, when he'll join several U.S. justices who have travelled to London to help celebrate the new Supreme Court. The U.S. ambassador is hosting a reception for Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia and Stephen Breyer, as well as their British counterparts. Lidsky's only regret is that Ginsburg, who was also supposed to be part of the U.S. delegation, won't be on hand. As we reported here yesterday, Ginsburg fell ill Wednesday night after boarding the plane for London and was taken to a hospital in D.C. She was released Thursday after observation overnight, but it was too late for her to catch up to the London events. 

The Morning Wrap

Judge Picks: The Washington Post reports that liberal activists are beginning to blame the Obama administration for moving too tentatively on judicial nominations. George W. Bush sent 95 names to the Senate in the same period that Barack Obama has forwarded 23.

Will There be a Concert Giant?: The Wall Street Journal reports that the proposed Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger is facing stiff resistance from the Justice Department and will require major concessions. The news comes a week after Britain's Competition Commission issued a preliminary opinion that the proposed merger would sharply reduce competition there.

Regulatory Carve-Out: Community banks and all but the largest credit unions would escape a new round of reviews by regulators, under a measure that won the support Thursday of the House Financial Services Committee, The New York Times reports. "Community banks and credit unions were perhaps not without sin in the last couple of years but they were certainly not engaged in the worst abuses," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), one of the measure's sponsors.

Drywall Litigation: The new chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission said she would ask China to help pay for the billions of dollars in damage to U.S. homes blamed on Chinese-made drywall, The Wall Street Journal reports. CPSC Chairman Inez Tenenbaum is headed to China next week for a summit about consumer safety.

Civil Disobedience: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit has ruled that the First Amendment does not insulate animal rights activists from criminal liability when they use an Internet Web site to orchestrate a harassment campaign, the Legal Intelligencer reports via Law.com. Among the activists' tactics was the use of "black faxes" — repeatedly faxing a black piece of paper to the same fax machine to exhaust the toner or ink supply.

Legal Job Watch: Who's Hiring in the Federal Government?

Legal jobs may be scarce in the private sector, but the federal government, it seems, still has a constant need for new lawyers.

It helps of course if you have experience in government contracts or a security clearance - or if you’re willing to work for $40,093 for the Army in Germany. As a new monthly feature, the BLT will highlight some of the current federal job listings, looking at which agencies are hiring and why, as well as some of the quirkier legal jobs in the corners of agencies you’ve never even heard of.

Given the state of the nation's banks, it's not too surprising that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has job openings for at least four lawyers in various offices around the country. In 2009, the agency said it planned to increase head count in its legal division from 453 to 648. As a bonus, the pay for the current positions tops out at just over $200,000 a year. Select financial regulatory agencies have their own pay scale, which is higher than the standard General Schedule. In Washington, the GS scale maxes out at $153,200.

For the really big government bucks, check out the Office of Thrift Supervision, which currently has a legal job that pays up to $217,040. Hey - that’s almost as much as a fifth year big firm associate - and $360 less than John Roberts makes as chief justice of the Supreme Court.

As for those with a hankering to work at the high court but just can’t keep waiting for another justice to retire, there’s the ultimate legal secretary job. An unnamed justice is looking for a new legal assistant/ secretary, and experience as a paralegal or lawyer is “highly preferred.” The catch – you need to know shorthand.

The Securities & Exchange Commission has several vacancies for lawyers. Historically, the agency has had unusually high turnover, and the Bernard Madoff cloud has hardly helped boost employee morale. In addition to several staff lawyer positions, the SEC offers hope to third year law school students who have seen their employment offers yanked. The agency is hiring six almost-lawyers to begin work as clerks after graduation and before they pass the bar. After they pass the exam, they’ll be promoted to attorney-advisors.