The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Legal Tender: New CFP Standards

Certified Financial Planners will soon have fiduciary duties toward their clients, after the adoption today of new ethical standards. The new standards, which go into effect next July, reportedly also include a requirement that the CFPs disclose their method and sources of compensation. And they restrict the use of the term "fee-only" to situations where the only source of compensation comes from client fees.

My take: If your financial adviser has fiduciary duties toward you, that's better than the alternative. But by itself, the abstract legal duty doesn't always mean that you are really getting advice untainted by conflicts of interest. If you must hire an adviser, look closely at the compensation structure. As I've written in a previous column (subscription required), a fee-only adviser who charges by the hour is a reasonable choice, but avoid anyone who pushes active trading.

Suggestion of Death

The two most anxiously awaited criminal cases left on the Supreme Court's docket this term are known as Rita and Claiborne, nicknames for the defendants in the cases, which test important issues in the aftermath of the Court's sentencing guidelines cases of recent terms: whether sentences higher than the guidelines (Rita) or lower than the guidelines (Claiborne) are presumed reasonable.

Well, it looks like Claiborne will never learn the answer -- nor will anyone else, at least in the context of his case. Scotusblog and Doug Berman's Sentencing Law and Policy blog are reporting that defendant Mario Claiborne died in a robbery incident in St. Louis on Wednesday. As we learned recently in a case involving Kenneth Lay, the death of a party in a case like this renders the case moot. (Note, though, that Johnnie Cochran's death did not completely moot his 2005 civil case before the Supreme Court.)

Using the quaint language of the law, Claiborne's federal defender today filed with the Supreme Court a "suggestion of death" confirming that Claiborne has died, though it won't be definitive until a death certificate is submitted. Sentencing guru Berman suggests that the loss of the Claiborne case might not have much impact, since the Rita case could lay down the law on both over- and under-guideline sentences.

The TB Lawyer

Alas. The young gentleman in medical quarantine with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis, the one who reportedly disregarded medical advice and flew home on a long flight with other passengers, turns out to be a lawyer. According to this Associated Press report, Andrew Speaker, 31, is a personal injury lawyer in Atlanta. His wife is a third-year law student at Emory.

Health officials are trying to track down about 80 passengers who sat near the guy on the flights. "I'm very nervous," said one university student waiting to hear the results of her TB test.

Bet this won't get highlighted at next year's Law Day.

Silence About Deaths in D.C. Group Homes

Melonie Nelson -- a mentally retarded woman with a documented history of eating problems -- choked to death in an understaffed group home where staffers apparently didn't perform any life-saving techniques to prevent her death, according to a confidential investigation by University Legal Services, the federally mandated advocate for disabled residents in the District.

Nelson's death is hardly an isolated incident. More than 90 people with developmental disabilities have died in D.C. group homes during the past three years, with 23 residents dying in the past eight months alone. Citing privacy statutes, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office has blocked the release of their names, so it is impossible to determine how many died from natural causes or from abuse and neglect.

Nelson’s name is the first of the dead residents to be revealed in a $15 million lawsuit filed recently by her mother against the District and group home operator D.C. Health Care, which runs the home on North Capitol Street where Nelson died as well as 12 other group homes.

The D.C. Department of Disability Services supervises more than 2,000 developmentally disabled residents and places them in group homes run by private contractors, but DDS officials refuse to say anything about Nelson's death or explain why no action has been taken against D.C. Health Care to prevent more deaths in its homes.

A Legal Times article published this week investigates Nelson's death, an attempted coverup by D.C. Health Care, and serious problems within the Department of Disability Services that could trigger a court-ordered receivership to remove control of the agency from the D.C. government.

On the Move

Richard Smith, Alexandre Rene and Guy Singer have walked away from Florida-based Akerman Senterfitt to join Fulbright & Jaworski’s Washington office. The trio, which starts work next week at Fulbright, represents the entirety of Akerman’s white collar practice in the District.

Smith is the former acting chief of the fraud section at the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. And he was one of the first-hand picked additions to Akerman's D.C. office, a year after it opened, in fall 2005.

Singer is also a Justice Department alum. He was part of the team of prosecutors that won convictions or guilty pleas from: Jack Abramoff, former public relations executive Michael Scanlon, former General Services Administration procurement official David Safavian, former Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), and former Republican congressional staffers turned lobbyists Neil Volz and Tony Rudy. Their exit comes on the heels of GOP lobbyist Jose Fuentes’ recent departure from Akerman.

The trio arrives at Fulbright two months after Michael Battle joined. Battle headed DOJ’s Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys until earlier this year, when he served as the primary messenger when the decision was made to fire the eight U.S. attorneys.

Career Clerks, Unite?

Career law clerks may not have a national organization, but they appear to be banding together in the name of workers' rights.

The recent flurry of attention began with an e-mail, sent May 29 by Linda Hylenski, a career law clerk for Judge Gerald Rosen on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, to the listservs for all clerks across the country. Hylenski’s beef: a set of “cost-cutting proposals targeting career law clerks” by a committee for the Judicial Conference.

The proposals, she wrote, centered on only one group of judicial employees: career law clerks. Among the suggestions: barring judges from taking on new career law clerks and limiting career law clerks from switching between chambers.

Unlike other sets of employees (namely, court reporters) career law clerks have no national organization to stand up for their rights, she wrote. So Hylenski sought replies from other comrades interested in commenting on the proposals. “Having a national list will help ensure that career clerks will be notified about any proposals/recommendations and comment periods, whether or not they choose to join any unified letters,” she wrote.

But not every clerk was so sanguine about the message. Many replied to the entire list, clogging inboxes, and sparking a war of words between the quiet foot soldiers of the nation’s judiciary. Short-term law clerks, supportive or otherwise, appeared quite peeved at the loss of precious work time that deleting the flood of e-mails caused.

One clerk, Michael Schaps, fired off a request for replies “if there are any term law clerks out there interested in supporting the cost-cutting proposals targeting career law clerks.”

One posted a recipe for grilled yellowfin tuna, another for tater tot casserole.

For her part, Hylenski says she didn’t intend to draw such attention. She says she received a few hundred interested replies from career law clerks, but declined to discuss their efforts further. “This is something we’re trying to deal with internally,” she says.

Another Gitmo Suicide

A Saudi detainee committed suicide yesterday at the Guantánamo Bay military detention camp, according to military reports. This marks the fourth detainee suicide since last June at the facility, which still houses about 380 prisoners. Thus far, military officials have not explained the exact details surrounding the man’s death. Click here (subscription required) for a Legal Times story on the previous suicides, including military mutterings about detainee lawyers.

Last Words From William Lerach?

Probably not. But The Washington Post reported today that William Lerach, defender of defrauded stockholders, scourge of struggling companies, is planning to quit his California law firm.

In the meantime, as the Post noted, he’s still vigorously advocating for his clients. Two very recent opinion pieces—one in Legal Times and one in National Law Journal (subscription required)—urge the courts to hold Enron’s banks responsible for their part in Enron’s fraudulent financial schemes.

Morning Wrap

More DOJ Probes: Officials probing the firing of several U.S. attorneys are now focusing on hiring practices in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights division and whether beginning lawyers were unfairly subjected to political scrutiny.

Mended City: New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin calls for more dollars to rebuild the hurricane-ravished city.

Wall Street Survives: Even after yesterday's drop in the Chinese stock market, U.S. stocks whethered the storm and soared.

Ballot Box: With the immigration bill at the forefront of the political debate, the Latino vote is all the rage for presidential candidates.

Kobe Trade?: What's in store for Kobe Bryant and the L.A. Lakers?

Griffin Out as Arkansas U.S. Attorney

The Arkansas prosecutor who has become a key figure in the scandal surrounding the firing of nine U.S. attorneys is set to step down as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. J. Timothy Griffin, a former aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove, will leave the office June 1, according to administration and Congressional sources familiar with the matter.

Griffin was appointed interim U.S. attorney in the district in December 2006 after his predecessor, H.E. "Bud" Cummins III, was fired by the Justice Department. Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty would later testify that Cummins was fired not for any performance reason, but to clear the spot for another Republican.

The appointment became a flashpoint for the controversy—not only because of Griffin's background doing opposition research at the Republican National Committee— but because Attorney General Alberto Gonzales appointed Griffin to the post under an obscure provision of the Patriot Act that circumvented the Senate's historic role in voting to confirm U.S. attorneys.

Gonzales maintained that the administration had intended to nominate Griffin on a permanent basis and bring him before the Senate for confirmation, but documents later released by the Justice Department indicated Gonzales' chief of staff had planned to mislead Arkansas' senators and circumvent the senate. Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) would publicly accuse Gonzales of lying to him about the Justice Department's intentions regarding Griffin's appointment. Griffin had indicated earlier this year that because of the political firestorm surrounding the firings, he would not see the job on a permanent basis.

Griffin could not be reached late Wednesday to comment. Reached by telephone earlier in the day and asked about reports that he had retained the services of a Washington, D.C.-based legal job placement agency, Griffin declined to directly address his future plans.

“I’ve certainly been assessing my options in the legal community," he said. "But I don’t have any announcement to make at this time.”

Pryor's office greeted the news with relief on Wednesday. “It’s a positive development," said Pryor spokesman Michael Teague, who said the senator was informed by the Justice Department about Griffin's departure Wednesday afternoon. "I think it’s about time we restore credible leadership in the Eastern District."

Griffin will be replaced on an interim basis by Jane Duke, the first assistant U.S. attorney in the office, Teague said.