The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

As Mergers Decline, Antitrust Enforcement Climbs

The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice today released their annual antitrust report, showing a slight decline in the number of mergers reviewed by the government last year but a jump in enforcement actions by the FTC.

In fiscal year 2012, the agencies received a total of 1,429 merger filings, a 1.4 percent drop compared to 2011, when there were 1,450 reportable mergers. Under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act, companies in 2012 were required to notify the government of deals worth more than $68.2 million prior to closing the transaction (the threshold was raised to $70.9 million in 2013).

The agencies issued fewer second requests for information in fiscal 2012, flagging 49 mergers for further investigation. That’s an 11 percent decline from 2011, when the agencies took a closer look at 55 deals. The FTC last year issued second requests in 20 mergers, and DOJ flagged 29, compared to 24 and 31 respectively the year before.

Former Bush Administration Lawyer Asks Judge for Probation

Federal prosecutors will not oppose a sentence of probation for a former George W. Bush administration lawyer who's charged in Washington with the destruction of government property.

Prosecutors in December charged Scott Bloch, the former head of the Office of Special Counsel, with the misdemeanor crime of destruction of property for his role in deletion of files from government computers.

The charge carries a guideline range of probation to six months in jail. Prosecutors said Monday in a sentencing memo, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that the government will not challenge a sentence at the lowest end of the range.

If Bloch is sentenced to probation, prosecutors asked for two conditions: a $5,000 fine and 200 hours of community service. Bloch, who practices in employment law in Washington, pleaded guilty to the charge in February.

Q&A: Nixon Peabody’s Jeffrey Lesk

Updated 6:16 p.m.

On days when he commutes by bicycle to the office, Jeffrey Lesk uses what he calls his Superman closet. In it Lesk, the managing partner of Nixon Peabody's Washington office, keeps suits, shirts and ties for a quick, post-shower change after his 25-mile roundtrip commute. 

In 2007, Lesk started as the leader of the tax credit finance group. Two years later, he took over as managing partner of the Washington office. Lesk is also a U.S. Green Building Council LEED accredited professional, a certification related to green development. Looking back at the accrediation test, Lesk quipped that it was the hardest test he took, second only to the bar exam.

The office has three broad focuses – regulatory, transaction and litigation. All of those, however, play into the larger role of the Washington office, which largely interacts with the government in some way.

Legal Times sat down with Lesk April 26 to discuss the business of the firm, his own practice and yoga.

DOJ Asks Judge to End Suit Over Afghan War Memoir

The Justice Department has renewed its effort to shut down a lawsuit in Washington over the scope of information a former U.S. defense intelligence officer can publish in a memoir about service in the war in Afghanistan.

DOJ lawyers said in court papers filed April 26 that the government has determined that some of the details in the book, Operation Dark Heart, written by Anthony Shaffer, are classified and cannot be publicly disclosed. "[T]here is no First Amendment right to publish classified information," Scott Risner of the DOJ civil division's federal programs branch wrote.

Shaffer's book, DOJ lawyers said, reveals "intelligence activities, sources and methods, as well as information about military plans and the foreign activities of the United States that, if disclosed, could reasonably be expected to cause serious identifiable damage to our national security." The dispute centers on information in 233 passages. The redactions include single words and whole sentences.

Obama Vows Closure of Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp

President Barack Obama said he will again press to close the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, calling it "not something that's in the best interest of the American people."

"I'm going to go back at this," Obama said at a White House press conference Tuesday morning, in response to a question about prisoners staging an on-going hunger strike over being held without trial.

"The idea we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, it's contrary to who we are. It's contrary to our interests and it's got to stop," Obama said. "All of us should reflect on why exactly are we doing this?"

The Morning Wrap

Given Probation: U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp scolded a Justice Department trial attorney for the government "not using a little more discretion" in prosecuting a 79-year-old widow, telling the defendant to appeal to the President for a pardon, Bloomberg reports.

The A-Team: A criminal trial of the suspected Boston Marathon bomber would pit "veteran defenders of a veritable rogue's gallery of criminal A-listers" that could make it "one of the most spectacular on American soil in decades," The Atlantic reports.

Return to Hanging Chads: As the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court during the 2000 presidential election revisits the twists and turns of the 36-day legal standoff between George W. Bush and Al Gore and their respective phalanxes of attorneys in Inside Bush v. Gore, to be published Tuesday by University Press of Florida, Am Law Daily reports.

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.