The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Mary Jo White Talks Budget on Capitol Hill

Making her first appearance on Capitol Hill as chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Jo White today urged members of a House panel to approve her agency’s request for $1.566 billion as part of President Barack Obama's budget. White testified before the Financial Services subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations.

Republicans on the subcommittee, including the chairman, Representative Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.), criticized the budget request as being 33 percent more than the sequester amount. The SEC funds its budget using securities transactions fees collected by the agency.

Representative Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.) asked White about the effects the sequestration has had on the agency. White said that while the SEC anticipated the budget cuts, the agency does not dilute its responsibility to oversee more than 35,000 entities.

Former Top DOJ Lawyer Joins Steptoe as Partner

A U.S. Justice Department official who resigned after the release of an internal report on the controversial gun-walking program Operation Fast and Furious has joined Steptoe & Johnson LLP as a partner.

Jason Weinstein, who left the Criminal Division in September as a deputy assistant attorney general, will practice in Steptoe's white-collar criminal defense and privacy and data security groups.

In an interview, Weinstein said Steptoe’s strengths in privacy and white collar matters attracted him to the firm. He said he expects privacy work to remain steady given the ever-increasing threat of computer hackers.

"I think we are on the cusp of a real watershed in civil litigation on data breaches and data security," Weinstein said. "You'll also see that where the regulators and the enforcers go, the plaintiffs lawyers are not far behind."

DOJ Report Urges Prison Reform for Compassionate Release

A comprehensive review of the federal prison system’s compassionate release program revealed a lack of standards for the evaluation of whether an inmate qualifies for a reduction in sentence, according to a U.S. Justice Department report published today.

The department's Office of the Inspector General found Bureau of Prisons staff had "varied and inconsistent understandings of circumstances that warranted consideration of compassionate release." Prison officials, the report also concluded, don't have effective procedures in place to inform inmates about the potential for compassionate release.

Under the program, the bureau can ask a federal judge to end a sentence based on "extraordinary and compelling" circumstances that were not present at the time the defendant was sentenced. In the six-year review period ending in 2011, the report said 142 inmates were approved for, and received, compassionate release. Click here for a copy of the report.

The DOJ report cited "multiple failures" in the implementation of compassionate release. The report found, among other things, disparate criteria for eligibility. For instance: at some prisons, only inmates with a life expectancy of six months or less were eligible. At others, inmates with a life expectancy of under a year were deemed eligible.

Law Firms Raise $3.6 Million for D.C. Civil Legal Services

Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit made an impassioned plea yesterday for law firms to take more responsibility for the welfare of civil legal services groups, lamenting the small percentage of the legal industry's billion-dollar revenues that go to financially-strapped providers.

Tatel spoke at an event honoring 36 law firms that contributed $3.6 million last year to local civil legal services through the D.C. Access to Justice Commission's second annual Raising the Bar in D.C. Campaign. Firms were honored based on the percentage of annual D.C. office revenues donated to legal services; the number of participating firms in 2012 was up from the 23 that participated in 2011.

Tatel praised the private bar's efforts to assist their colleagues in civil legal services, but warned the challenges facing individuals who can't afford a lawyer "is only getting worse." In the District of Columbia, for instance, he noted that more than 90 percent of litigants are unrepresented in certain types of civil cases.

Former Bush Administration Lawyer Asks Judge for Probation

Federal prosecutors will not oppose a sentence of probation for a former George W. Bush administration lawyer who's charged in Washington with the destruction of government property.

Prosecutors in December charged Scott Bloch, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, with the misdemeanor crime of destruction of property for his role in deletion of files from government computers.

The charge carries a guideline range of probation to six months in jail. Prosecutors said Monday in a sentencing memo, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that the government will not challenge a sentence at the lowest end of the range.

If Bloch is sentenced to probation, prosecutors asked for two conditions: a $5,000 fine and 200 hours of community service. Bloch, who practices in employment law in Washington, pleaded guilty to the charge in February.

DOJ Asks Judge to End Suit Over Afghan War Memoir

The Justice Department has renewed its effort to shut down a lawsuit in Washington over the scope of information a former U.S. defense intelligence officer can publish in a memoir about service in the war in Afghanistan.

DOJ lawyers said in court papers filed April 26 that the government has determined that some of the details in the book, Operation Dark Heart, written by Anthony Shaffer, are classified and cannot be publicly disclosed. "[T]here is no First Amendment right to publish classified information," Scott Risner of the DOJ civil division's federal programs branch wrote.

Shaffer's book, DOJ lawyers said, reveals "intelligence activities, sources and methods, as well as information about military plans and the foreign activities of the United States that, if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to cause serious identifiable damage to our national security." The dispute centers on information in 233 passages. The redactions include single words and whole sentences.

The Am Law 100: Washington's Financial Report Card

Updated 5:15 p.m.

Washington law firms generally maintained their ranking on the this year’s Am Law 100, our sibling publication's annual financial report card. Of 12 Washington firms, nine saw an increase in gross revenue, the main metric of the survey. Washington firms remained fairly consistent with their national counterparts of which 76 percent saw an increase in gross revenue.

Arnold & Porter saw its gross revenue grow to $731 million, an increase of 14.3 percent over 2012. The firm had the biggest gross revenue gain among the Washington firms. Arnold & Porter climbed seven spots on the ranking to 37^th overall.

Arnold & Porter chairman Thomas Milch attributed part of the bump in gross revenue to its merger with San Francisco-based Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in January 2012. He said that despite the firm's positive numbers, the legal market would continue to be a challenge.

"We think that the marketplace will stay challenging not just for firms that grew up in D.C., but a lot of the firms in the top 100," Milch said in an interview Monday.

D.C. Court of Appeals Chief Unopposed for Third Term

In 2012, the median time for the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to resolve cases was 352 days. It was the first time in a decade that number dropped below the one-year line, and as Chief Judge Eric Washington prepares for what will likely be another tem as chief, he says he wants to do better.

Washington is unopposed in his bid for a third four-year term leading the city's highest local court. He is widely credited with making the court more efficient, but complaints about case backlogs have persisted. In his application materials, Washington wrote that "fair and timely resolution" of cases remains a top priority.

According to court statistics, the median number of days it took the court to resolve cases dropped from 10-year highs of 505 days in 2002 and 2007 to 352 days last year. The average time it took to resolve cases remained higher—a sign that certain cases are still taking much longer—although the court also reached a 10-year low of 427 days last year.

The Morning Wrap

The Am Law 100: "For the first time ever neither Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom nor Baker & McKenzie heads The Am Law 100’s gross revenue rankings, as DLA Piper—already the world’s largest firm by head count—claims the top spot." The 2013 Am Law 100 full report is here. Features include: Spring Awakening, and Disappearing Act. Here's a look at how an enormous contingency fee, coupled with merger integration, boosted Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

Silenced: Federal agents' reading of Miranda rights to Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev silenced him, officials said Thursday. In The Boston Globe, the carjack victim recounts his night riding at gunpoint with the Tsarnaev brothers. "Danny thought about his burgeoning startup and about a girl he secretly liked in New York. 'I think, ‘Oh my god, I have no chance to meet you again,’” the victim recalled, according to the Globe. Tsarnaev is now being held in a prison medical center.

Money flow: The New York Times investigates the long legal history of farmers' discrimination claims, exposing how Obama administration political appointees in the Agriculture and Justice departments engineered a "stunning" deal to commit $1.3 billion to thousands of Hispanic and female farmers who had never claimed bias in court. The Times says the deal was made over the objections of career lawyers and agency officials who said the evidence didn't support systemic discrimination.

D.C. Bar Leaders Express Concern Over Dues Increase

The D.C. Bar Board of Governors voted earlier this month to raise member dues by $10, a decision that has drawn criticism from some board members who say it was an unnecessary increase and not in bar members' best interests.

Active bar members will pay $265 in annual dues beginning July 1, up from $255 last year. Judicial member dues will also go up, from $127 to $130, while dues for inactive members will hold at $130.

Board member and local solo practitioner Gregory Smith said his opposition to the increase wasn't so much about the amount, which he acknowledged wouldn't make a difference to most lawyers, as the principle and what it would fund. Under the approved budget, the bar would continue to set aside a little over $500,000 annually for future building needs, which could include buying space, as opposed to leasing as it does now.