The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Washington Attorney Gets Prison for Stealing from Clients

A Washington-based attorney who admitted in January to stealing more than $100,000 intended for his clients has been sentenced to six months in prison, followed by six months of house arrest.

Deairich Hunter was sentenced Thursday for pilfering payments to settle disability and personal injury claims by his clients. As part of his punishment, Hunter was ordered by U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell to pay restitution of $253,549 and forfeit $73,901.

From 2003 to 2009, Hunter was hired by clients in disputes arising from disability and personal injury claims. Many of the clients agreed he was entitled to one third of the recovery, according to court papers. Hunter failed to notify some of his clients, however, keeping settlement money for himself. Hunter was disbarred in 2009. Hunter pleaded guilty in January to theft or embezzlement related to health care.

Daily D.C. Lateral Roundup: Van Ness Feldman; Alston & Bird

Van Ness Feldman has added a former congressman to the Washington and Seattle offices. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) has joined the firm as senior policy counsel in the government relations and public policy team. He focuses on environmental public policy, strategic, and regulatory issues. His long-time staffer, LaTasha Wortham, has also joined the firm’s Washington office earlier this week as director of governmental issues.

Previously, Dicks served in the House Appropriations Committee before chairing the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Interior Subcommittee. From 1995 to 1998, he served as the Ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee. He retired at the end of the 112th Congress after serving for 36 years.

A former Dentons partner has moved to Alston & Bird’s Washington office. Stephen Ornstein has joined the firm’s capital market practice. The move is part of a bigger one including four other former Dentons partners who joined Alston & Bird New York office.

Daily D.C. Lateral Roundup

A trio of former Hogan Lovells partners have moved to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton’s Washington office. Gardner Gillespie, Dave Thomas, and Paul Werner have joined as partners in the firm's business trial practice group and communications team.

Gillespie focuses his practice on cable television and telecommunications regulation and litigation. Thomas, formerly the practice group leader of Hogan Lovell’s communications group, focuses on the telecommunications and broadband communications industries, specifically on the deployment of competitive networks and services. Werner is a seasoned litigator and has represented cable operators and other broadband providers in matters involving communications law issues.

A former congresswoman has moved to Bracewell & Giuliani’s Washington office. Anne Northup (R-Ky.) has joined the firm’s policy resolution group as a strategist and advisor. She focuses on clients in the consumer products, health, international trade, energy, environment, and manufacturing sectors.

Round-up: Law Firm Leadership Changes in Washington

Updated 4:12 p.m.

In recent days, a number of law firms announced leadership changes in Washington.

Last week, Carter Phillips was named the sole chairman of Sidley Austin's executive committee. Phillips shared the title with Thomas Cole for the past year as part of a transition period. Cole held the title of chairman for the past 15 years.

Phillips previously served as managing partner of Sidley's Washington office from 1995 to 2012. In addition to his management duties, Phillips said he will continue to maintain his active practice focused on appellate and white-collar work. Phillips said his goal as chairman is to add to the foundation Cole built during the past 15 years.

"The single biggest goal in my mind is to convert the firm from one of the handful of the strongest national law firms with an international footprint to one of the strongest global law firms," Phillips said. "In some ways the most important, immediate perceptive is to strengthen the existing offices."

Brown Rudnick Hires Senior White-Collar Defense Lawyer

The head of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck's white-collar criminal defense and investigations group has jumped to Brown Rudnick in Washington, the lawyer's new firm announced Monday.

Stephen Best, who started at Brownstein in 2010, joined Brown Rudnick as a partner in the firm's white-collar defense and government investigations group. He focuses on anti-corruption matters, including Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission cases.

Best said he left Brownstein on good terms. He noted that he continues to assist the firm with some matters, which he declined to identify.

Daily D.C. Lateral Roundup: Wiley Rein; Baker Botts

Wiley Rein has added a former U.S. Department of Commerce official to the Washington office. Anna Gomez has joined the firm as partner in the communications practice. Previously, Gomez served as deputy assistant secretary for communications and information with the Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration. At the agency, she developed and advocated communications policies before state and local governments, international organizations, foreign governments, private organizations, federal agencies and the U.S. Congress.

Her accomplishments include successfully overseeing the information administration’s digital television transition program and creating a new $7 billion public safety broadband network program housed within the agency. Formerly, Gomez has spent 12 years at the Federal Communications Commission in the office of the chairman, the Wireline Competition Bureau and finally as deputy chief of the International Bureau.

Jay Ryan has moved from Van Ness Feldman to Baker Botts’ Washington office. Ryan joins as partner in the global projects practice and counsels electric utilities, renewable resources, developers, hydroelectric licensees, investment banks and private equity firms on transactional, regulatory and litigation matters related to the energy industry.

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."

The Morning Wrap

More Jobs: The legal industry in April picked up 2,100 jobs, The Am Law Daily reports.

Seeking Release: Robel Phillipos, the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev friend accused of lying to authorities probing the Boston Marathon bombing, will try to secure his release from federal custody on Monday, The New York Times reports. Derege Demissie and Susan Church, Phillipo's lawyers, said in the court papers that the charges against their client were "refutable."

Tax Bill: Internet sales tax legislation is expected to go up for a vote in the U.S. Senate on Monday, CNNMoney reports. "We think this will help level the playing field," said Stephen Schatz, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation, one of the bill's biggest backers.

Daily D.C. Lateral Roundup: Akin Gump; Venable; Dickstein Shapiro; Nelson Mullins

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has added a telecom industry veteran to the Washington office. Douglas Brandon, former general counsel at TerreStar Networks, has joined the firm as partner in its communications and information technology practice. He oversaw all of the company’s legal matters, including its bankruptcy process, which led to the sale of substantially all of TerreStar’s assets to DISH Network.

During his nearly 25 years of experience in the wireless telecommunications industry, he has worked with terrestrial providers and satellite carriers on a range of regulatory and policy matters before the departments of Commerce and Justice, the FCC as well as with Congress.

Venable has added a former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforcement attorney to the Washington office. Allyson Baker has joined the firm as partner in the litigation practice and focuses on commercial litigation, consumer finance and tax controversy. Formerly, she was among the initial team of enforcement attorneys at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau who helped formulate agency policies regarding investigations and litigation in the aftermath of the financial crisis. She helped formulate policies on litigation, investigations, and Dodd-Frank Act jurisdiction issues.

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.