The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Q&A: Jones Day's Gregory Shumaker

Gregory Shumaker started his legal career as a summer associate in Jones Day's Washington office in 1986. Almost 27 years later, he's still there.

Shumaker took on the role of partner-in-charge of the Washington office in January 2011, having previously served as head of the firm's law school and lateral recruiting program from 2007 to 2011. His practice focuses on civil litigation and investigations involving criminal, regulatory and congressional matters.

When Chrysler was going through bankruptcy in 2009, Shumaker was part of the trial team that represented the car company all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Legal Times sat down with Shumaker to discuss Supreme Court clerks, the Washington legal market and the business of the firm.

Top Former Justice Officials Defend Holder

A group of former senior officials of the Department of Justice is strongly defending Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. in response to a recent Washington Post column that criticized Holder's "mediocre performance" in the job.

Holder is "a leader with deep integrity, excellent judgment, and an unwavering commitment to do the right thing without regard for partisan preferences," the 24 officials said in a joint letter to the editor of the Post, set for print publication in abbreviated form on Sunday. The short version of the letter has already been published online; the full statement is here.

Among those signing the letter were former deputy attorney general David Ogden, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal, and former assistant AGs Lanny Breuer, David Kris, Ignacia Moreno, Spencer Overton, Sharis Pozen, Laurie Robinson, Christopher Schroeder and Ronald Weich.

In Secret Court, DOJ Fights Access to Surveillance Ruling

Amid the national debate over privacy and surveillance, the Justice Department is fighting a civil liberties group's effort to obtain a copy of a lengthy, secret court ruling that declared government monitoring of communications unlawful.

The Justice Department today filed papers in the Washington-based Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, saying "there is good reason not to vacate the seal on the opinion." The ruling—sealed by the surveillance court, and considered classified by the executive branch—is at the center of a Freedom of Information Act case pending in Washington federal district court.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation sued in August to try to get a copy of the surveillance court ruling. In the trial court litigation, the Justice Department said the surveillance court's rules don't allow the government to release the opinion and that DOJ doesn't have discretion to do so. Lawyers for the civil liberties group asked to put the case on hold to allow them to test the government's argument in the surveillance court itself.

"The fact that there are two separate reasons why [EFF] cannot obtain the FISC opinion it seeks—because it is properly classified by the Executive Branch and because it is under this court’s seal—does not imply a 'Catch-22,'" DOJ lawyers said today in the government's court papers.

Steptoe Team Represents D.C. Council Member in Bribery Case

Updated 2:33 p.m.

A team from Steptoe & Johnson LLP is representing former D.C. Council member Michael A. Brown in a bribery case prosecutors filed today in Washington federal district court.

Brown, formerly an elected at-large member of the D.C. Council, in January agreed to a $55,000 cash bribe from undercover FBI agents who were posing as officials from a company whose identity isn't disclosed in court papers. Brown lost his re-election bid in January.

Prosecutors, including assistant U.S. attorneys Michael Atkinson, David Last and Anthony Saler, said in the one-count information that Brown agreed to the bribe "in return for being influenced in the performance of an official act."

The government lawyers said Brown offered to provide assistance to "Company M" to get contracts in Washington and to obtain approval as a Certified Business Enterprise from the D.C. Department of Small and Local. Brown will plead guilty to the bribery charge. U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins has set a plea hearing for June 10.

Obama Demands Action in Nominating Three for D.C. Circuit

President Barack Obama today formally nominated three lawyers to fill slots on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, introducing the candidates in remarks in the Rose Garden and calling on the U.S. Senate to give each nominee a vote.

Standing next to the president, the three nominees: Patricia Millett of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, U.S. District Judge Robert Wilkins and Cornelia "Nina" Pillard, a Georgetown University Law Center professor.

Obama didn't exactly strike a bipartisan tone in his remarks, which lasted about 15 minutes. The president chided Senate republicans for delaying votes on judicial candidates and, in some cases, blocking nominations. Obama's first pick for the D.C. Circuit, Caitlin Halligan, languished in the Senate. She withdrew her name in March.

"Too much of the peoples' business is at stake," Obama said today. "Our legal framework depends on timely confirmation of judicial nominees, and nowhere is this more apparent than with the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals."

Justice Dept. Defends Holder Testimony on Leaks

The U.S. Justice Department today defended the accuracy of Attorney General Eric Holder Jr.’s testimony about his role in leak prosecutions, refuting the notion among critics that he misled members of Congress and opened himself up to a potential perjury charge.

The dispute centers on whether Holder lied when he told the House Judiciary Committee on May 15 that he had never taken part in the potential prosecution of a journalist for the disclosure and publication of classified information. Holder said then that the prosecution of a journalist “is not something that I have never been involved in, heard of, or would think would be a wise policy."

DOJ, however, later acknowledged that Holder approved a search warrant in 2010 targeting the emails of Fox News reporter James Rosen. Prosecutors charged a government contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, with leaking information about North Korea to Rosen. The reporter, however, identified in a search warrant affidavit as a "co-conspirator," was never charged.

In a letter sent today to House Judiciary Committee members, a Justice Department lawyer said Holder's testimony was "accurate and consistent" with the facts of the investigation and prosecution of Kim, who is set to appear in court Tuesday morning in Washington for a status conference in the leak case.

Troutman, Former Partner Part Ways Amid Probe

Back in December, Troutman Sanders trumpeted the addition of former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to the ranks of the firm’s Washington office.

Shurtleff was to be an integral partner in the state attorneys general practice in the areas of "privacy, data security, state consumer protection issues and matters involving the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau," according to a December news release from the firm. He officially joined the firm in January.

In April, Shurtleff was in the spotlight on Capitol Hill, testifying before the House Judiciary Committee in support of an immigration reform bill. "This bill strikes a careful balance among its most important pillars: interior enforcement and border security, earned legalization and a path to citizenship, needed reforms to our current immigration system, and efforts to deal with the current backlog of immigration," Shurtleff said in his prepared testimony.

But almost six months after joining the firm, Shurtleff and Troutman have parted ways, according to several media reports. "I resigned," Shurtleff told The Salt Lake Tribune on June 1. "Commuting to D.C. and all the [national] speaking was just too hard on me and my family." (Shurtleff did not respond to requests for comment from The BLT.)

D.C. Circuit Upholds ATF Firearm Reporting Rule

Thousands of firearm dealers in Southwest border states must comply with gun federal agents' demands for information about the bulk sale of semi-automatic rifles, a federal appeals court in Washington ruled today.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit unanimously upheld the propriety of so-called "demand letters," rejecting the legal challenge brought by two gun dealers in Arizona and a firearms association based in Newtown, Conn.

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives in July 2011, seeking to curb gun trafficking along the Southwest border, sent the letters to thousands of dealers in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The ATF said the dealers must report to the government the sale of two or more semi-automatic rifles, within any five consecutive business days, with certain characteristics.

DOJ Official Will Return to Covington & Burling in July

Updated 5:44 p.m.

A U.S. Justice Department lawyer who served in Lanny Breuer’s front office in the Criminal Division is leaving his post this week and will return to Covington & Burling in July.

Daniel Suleiman, the deputy chief of staff and counselor to assistant attorney general, has worked for nearly three years in the division. Suleiman also oversees the office of policy and legislation and the office of administration. He will return to Covington as special counsel on July 1.

Suleiman left Covington for Main Justice in 2010 to serve as counsel to Breuer, who was then the head of the Criminal Division. In March, Breuer, one of the longest-serving Criminal Division leaders in DOJ history, rejoined Covington in newly-created role of vice-chairman of the firm.

"I was lucky enough to convince Dan over two and half years ago to join me at the Department of Justice," Breuer said. "Now that I'm back at Covington & Burling, I was doubly thrilled to convince Dan to yet again join me."

In Fourth Circuit, a Spotlight on Warrantless GPS Tracking

There's no dispute that the traffic stop one morning in May 2009 was legitimate. The driver of a Pontiac Grand Prix failed to use a signal before turning into an exit lane to leave Interstate 95 in South Carolina.

The authorities initiated a traffic stop on the exit ramp that morning near Charleston. The passenger, police would later say, was nervous. His arms and legs were shaking, according to court records.

The stop wasn't random. Local and federal investigators, working on a drug case, secretly were monitoring the movement of the car via a global positioning device—one that had been attached without a warrant.