The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

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.

Senate Confirms Treasury General Counsel

The U.S. Treasury Department has its first Senate-confirmed general counsel since George Madison stepped down last summer.

The Senate unanimously approved acting Treasury General Counsel Christopher Meade for the post. Meade joined the Treasury Department as principal deputy general counsel in March 2010, becoming acting general counsel in June. The Senate voted April 25 on Meade’s nomination.

"For three years, Chris's sound judgment and deep knowledge have made him a tremendous asset to Treasury and the Administration," Treasury Secretary Jacob "Jack" Lew said in a written statement. "His impressive grasp of a wide set of legal and policy matters ranging from the tax code to terrorism finance has been and will be vital as we move forward with initiatives of immense scope and complexity."

DOJ Watching for Boston Bombing Retaliation

The U.S. Department of Justice is focusing not only on the prosecution of the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect, but also protecting Muslims and other cultural groups from retaliation in the wake of such attacks, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said Monday.

In a speech to the Anti-Defamation League in Washington, Holder stopped short of saying he would pursue the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying only that he would hold the 19-year-old defendant, charged in Boston federal district court, accountable "to the fullest extent of the law."

"But I also want to make clear that—just as we will pursue relentlessly anyone who would target our people or attempt to terrorize our cities—the Justice Department is firmly committed to protecting innocent people against misguided acts of retaliation," Holder said.

The Morning Wrap

Ricin Arrest: A Mississippi martial arts instructor is in police custody as part of a probe into ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and two other public officials, Reuters reports. Everett Dutschke, 41, faces maximum possible penalties of life imprisonment and a $250,000 fine if convicted.

'Goodbye': Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said she isn't sure the court should have taken Bush v. Gore, which ended the Florida recount and decided the 2000 presidential election, the Chicago Tribune reports. "It took the case and decided it at a time when it was still a big election issue," O'Connor said during a talk Friday with the Tribune editorial board. "Maybe the court should have said, 'We're not going to take it, goodbye.'"

Transportation Nomination: President Barack Obama intends to nominate Charlotte, N.C., mayor Anthony Foxx to serve as the next transportation secretary, The New York Times reports.

D.C. Circuit Won't Hear Challenge to SEC Resource Rule - Yet

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit put off - at least for now - reviewing a controversial rule by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that would require oil and gas companies to disclose government payments.

The appeals court concluded that the petitioners, led by the American Petroleum Institute, first had to litigate their case in district court.

"To be sure, this may not be the most efficient way to resolve such cases, and we certainly understand petitioners' desire to have these important issues addressed expeditiously," wrote Judge David Tatel for the panel, which also included Judge Janice Rogers Brown and Senior Judge David Sentelle. "But it is Congress’s job, not ours, to determine ‘the court in which judicial review of agency decisions may occur.’”

Lawyers, Judge Share Close Ties in Jesse Jackson Jr. Case

Former Illinois congressman Jesse Jackson Jr.'s embezzlement case is proving just how small Washington's legal world can be.

The first judge randomly assigned to the case in Washington's federal trial court has now recused himself. Today in court, the second judge—also randomly assigned—took extra measures to air her connections to the lawyers.

U.S. District Judge Amy Jackson Berman, a former white-collar criminal defense attorney at Trout Cacheris, listed her connections during the first status conference on the case since it was assigned to her April 16. President Barack Obama appointed Jackson to the bench in March 2011.

At FEC, Socialist Workers Party Donors are Anonymous

If you give money to the Socialist Workers Party, your name won't show up in Federal Election Commission records.

The FEC on April 25 agreed to continue a long-standing reporting exemption for the party's supporters - all 118 of them - who gave money in 2012. The party received $16,087 in total contributions last year.

The socialist party argued that public disclosure of its donors’ names, addresses and occupations would deprive them of their First Amendment rights because it would open them up to harassment.

Cohen Milstein Partner Confirmed as EEOC Commissioner

Updated at 3:50 pm

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll partner Jenny Yang to serve as a commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Yang, whose term will expire July 1, 2017, fills the spot left vacant when Democrat Stuart Ishimaru resigned last year to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Office of Minority and Women Inclusion.

At Cohen Milstein, Yang was among the lawyers who represented 1.5 million women in the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes sex-discrimination class action. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 tossed the case, the biggest discrimination class action in history.

Congress Urged to End Legal ‘Chaos’ Around GPS Warrants

Privacy experts and attorneys urged Congress to update laws governing protections for wireless customers' location data in criminal investigations Thursday, testifying on Capitol Hill that there is confusion among federal courts and other practical difficulties.

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security is looking to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision last year in United States v. Jones. The court, upholding the reversal of a man's life sentence, held that a government's placement of a GPS device on a car is a Fourth Amendment search.

But the ubiquitous nature of mobile phones that also include ways to track people brings up a wide range of issues, said subcommittee Chairman Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.). "Unfortunately, Jones was limited to the installation of a GPS tracker on a suspect’s vehicle and gives us limited guidance," Sensenbrenner said.