The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

'Operation Holiday Hoax' Targeted Counterfeit Goods

A six-day enforcement sting combating the importation and distribution of counterfeit and pirated goods has netted seven arrests and the seizure of merchandise worth more than $26 million in the United States, federal officials announced today.

Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, was on hand in Arlington, Va., today to announce the sting – dubbed “Operation Holiday Hoax.” The seized goods included Christmas ornaments, DVDs, CDs, clothing, shoes, handbags, perfume, stationery, phones and pharmaceuticals. In Mexico, the authorities seized an additional 272 tons of counterfeit goods.

“Consumers are entitled to rely on a marketplace that provides them with safe and legitimate products,” Breuer said in a prepared statement. “Consumers deserve to know that the goods and services they buy are what they say they are.”

The operation targeted the “most serious” intellectual property violators in the import and distribution network, Breuer said. Click here for a copy of the remarks.

In their own announcement supporting the law enforcement initiative, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America said the sting had netted nearly 160,000 counterfeit DVDs and CDs.

“More than 2.4 million American jobs are supported by the movie and television industry alone,” MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman said in a statement. “Each of the pirated DVDs shown here today represents a theft, not just from the motion picture studios, but from the hard earned wages of these men and women working in all 50 states of our union.”

Jones Day Partner Swinging to Top of Golf World

Jones Day partner Glen Nager has been nominated for second vice president of the United States Golf Association, continuing a climb to the top that started when he became the group's general counsel in 2006. He is expected to assume his new post in February.

Last year, he was bumped up the group’s leaderboard when he was appointed to the executive committee. He has served on nearly a dozen other committees during his tenure with the USGA, which is the national governing body of golf for the United States and Mexico. Now, as second in line for the presidency, Nager is only few strokes away from the pinnacle of golf governance.

Nager, 51, who chairs the Jones Day’s issues and appeals practice, said he first picked the game up in his 30s. “I love playing golf,” he said. “The game of golf has great traditions where you apply the rules to yourself, so it requires honor and integrity.”

A J.D. is an obvious boon in the general counsel position, being a lawyer helps in other posts too, Nager said. “There are a lot of parallels between being involved in developing the rules of golf and being a lawyer,” he said, because the procedures are similar. “I wouldn’t be shocked if I become chairman of the rules of golf committee.”

But he added that the choice is up to the incoming president, retired banking executive James Hyler. As far as potential rule changes, Nager said: “It’s publicly known that the USGA is looking at a number of different rules, such as the rules of balls lying on hazards. When you would be penalized for a ball lying in the sand and when you wouldn’t, for instance.”

The USGA position is a volunteer post and Nager will remain a full-time partner at Jones Day, but he said he’ll find a way to manage both. “The USGA will take up more and more of my time, no doubt,” he said.

Between the two gigs, when will he find the time to actually play the game he loves? “Well, that is a problem. All who serve on the executive committee, their golf games tend to suffer,” he quipped. “You think you’re going to get to play all these terrific golf courses. Well, you get to see them.”

Nager clerked for Justice O’Connor in the 1983 term and still meets up with her for a round of golf every now and then, he said. She was one of his sponsors when he applied for membership in the exclusive Chevy Chase Club. And much like her reputation on the bench, O’Connor swings right down the middle. “She hits the ball dead straight. It’s sickening,” Nager joked.

In Granting New Trial, Judge Questions Prosecution 'Tactic'

Calling a prosecutor’s failure to turn over favorable evidence to the defense conscious and deliberate, a D.C. Superior Court judge this afternoon granted a new trial to a D.C. man accused of fatally stabbing another man in a park in Southeast Washington in August 2007.

Judge Frederick Weisberg barely looked up from the bench as he questioned the prosecutor’s decision to conceal testimony that cast doubt on the credibility of the government’s chief witness against Joseph Harrington.

The new information—grand jury testimony from a woman whom the government did not call at trial last year—was not given to Harrington’s Public Defender Service lawyers until January, a month after Harrington was convicted. Assistant U.S. Attorney Vivien Cockburn argued in briefs that the testimony wasn’t material and would not have changed the outcome of the trial.

Harrington’s lawyers, Thomas Dybdahl and Christopher Roberts, say the concealed testimony was crucial to the defense and they alleged Cockburn violated her obligation to produce exculpatory material. “We believe what was done was not done inadvertently,” Dybdahl said in court today. The judge agreed.

“In my opinion,” Weisberg said, “it was patently disclosable, not a debatable point.” Weisberg called the failure to the disclose the information a prosecution tactic, saying the testimony “could be mischievous in the hands of a good defense lawyer.”

It is the jury's role, and not that of the prosecution, to determine the credibility of witnesses, Weisberg said. Granting a new trial motion, the judge said, is “extreme” and costly, and it should serve to remind prosecutors of their obligations. Weisberg said he did not see his role as one requiring him to bring sanctions against the prosecutor.

The judge set a May 1 status conference. Harrington was ordered held in custody pending trial.

Washington Lawyers Don't Trivialize Literacy

D.C. lawyers often find themselves battling against each other. But last night, it wasn’t in a courtroom.  

Kirkland & Ellis hosted the second annual Lawyers for Literacy Trivia Challenge. Eight D.C. law offices and the Association of Corporate Counsel fielded teams for the event. To register, each team paid $1,500. All of the proceeds went to Everybody Wins! DC – a nonprofit organization that promotes children’s literacy through reading and mentoring programs, according to Mark Young, the organization’s chair and a Kirkland partner. The organization has circulated throughout 39 D.C. public schools this year. 

The four-round competition covered a range of disciplines from sports to the Supreme Court. For instance, here’s the first question of the night from emcee Neal Racioppo: “According to the American Film Institute, the No. 1 hero on its list of top 100 movie heroes is a lawyer. Name the character?” (Answer: Atticus Finch) 

Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati jumped out to an early lead posting a perfect 20 points in the first round. The team never looked back and cruised to a victory with 44 points. (Here's the team appearing from left to right: Lawrence Perrone, Nicholas Porritt, Lindsey Wilson, Byung Bae Kim (alternate), Jacob Wolman, Michael Labriola, and Paul Jin).

Before the event, Young predicted one of Kirkland’s four teams that registered - the team made up of the firm’s support staff - would win and unseat the defending champions – a team from Shook, Hardy & Bacon that went under the name Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner. 

Young, who tries to have a group of lawyers go with him to D.C. public schools weekly, was pleased with the turnout and said, “it’s all about putting out the message.” Young says the firm has about 38 lawyers involved in the program. Some notable names who have participated in the organization in the past include Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).