The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

Dentons, McKenna Long Confirm Merger Talks

By Brian Baxter and Sara Randazzo

Am Law 100 firms McKenna Long & Aldridge and Dentons confirmed to The Am Law Daily late Monday that they are discussing a potential tie-up that would create a firm with more than 3,100 lawyers around the world.

A source at one of the firms told The Am Law Daily on the condition of anonymity that leaders on both sides of the talks are aiming to complete the deal by January 1, 2014.

In response to requests for comment on the status of their negotiations, representatives for both Dentons and McKenna Long issued prepared statements to The Am Law Daily.

Heath Care Attorneys Watch Capitol Hill Budget Battle

Health care attorneys and their clients are less worried about a government shutdown than any changes to the Affordable Care Act that might come out of budget negotiations.

"In large part, most of the clients are proceeding with business as usual," said Jason Caron, a health care partner at McDermott Will & Emery. "People are definitely keeping an eye on what will be the likely compromise, given that I don't think either side of the aisle wants to have the government shut down for a long time."

Republicans have demanded to defund or delay parts of the Affordable Care Act as part of the ongoing federal budget negotiations. Congress has until midnight to reach a deal, otherwise "nonessential" federal employees would be furloughed.

DOJ Wants Charges Dropped Against Former Blackwater Guard

Prosecutors today asked a Washington judge to dismiss charges against one of five former private security guards in the 2007 shooting deaths of more than a dozen Iraqis in Baghdad.

The decision, announced in a court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, came as the U.S. Justice Department considers filing a new indictment against the former Blackwater security contractors. Five guards, including Donald Ball, whose case the government says should be dismissed, were charged with manslaughter in 2008 following a shooting in Nisour Square in Baghdad. The gunfire left 14 Iraqi civilians dead.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina in 2009, citing prosecutorial abuses, threw out the case. Urbina concluded the government improperly used protected statements, made by the guards themselves in the aftermath of the shooting, in building its case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit later revived the case, giving the government a second chance to pursue charges. The government has not filed a new indictment.

Ball's lawyer, Steven McCool of Mallon & McCool, recently urged prosecutors not to pursue a case against his client. Writing to the U.S. Attorney's Office in March, McCool said the government intentionally misled a grand jury to obtain a "baseless indictment being returned against Mr. Ball."

Court Dismisses Palestinian President's Son's Libel Suit

A Washington federal judge has dismissed a defamation suit the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas brought against the publisher of Foreign Policy magazine.

Yasser Abbas sued Foreign Policy and Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, over a June 2012 article Schanzer wrote questioning whether Abbas and his brother were profiting from their family's political connections.

Foreign Policy and Schanzer moved to dismiss the lawsuit under a D.C. law that offers defendants an early route to dismissal if they believe they've been sued over protected speech, known as an anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) law.

D.C. Circuit Hears Guantanamo Detainee Challenge

The en banc U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit heard arguments today in a case that could undo a terrorism conviction and reshape how the government prosecutes criminal charges against other detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The court was asked whether military commissions could hear charges that weren't defined as war crimes under international law when the defendant was accused of committing them. Congress passed a law in 2006 spelling out the jurisdiction of the military commissions, but detainee Ali Hamza al-Bahlul-along with other detainees at Guantanamo Bay-was charged several years earlier.

Retroactive application of new criminal statutes is generally considered unconstitutional. Today's arguments came down to whether the crimes al-Bahlul was convicted of-conspiracy, solicitation and material support for terrorism-were considered war crimes under the international law of war before 2006.

SEC Chief Litigation Counsel Stepping Down

Less than three months after a federal jury found former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. vice president Fabrice Tourre liable for securities fraud, Matthew Martens, the Securities and Exchange Commission's lead trial counsel on the case, is leaving the agency.

Martens in October will step down as the chief litigation counsel in the SEC Division of Enforcement, leaving the post to his deputy, Matthew Solomon, the agency announced Friday. Martens has served as chief litigation counsel since 2010, when he joined the agency from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of North Carolina.

The SEC didn't say in its news release where Martens is heading, and agency spokeswoman Christina D'Amico declined to comment.

In Government Shutdown, Civil Litigation Takes Hit

Updated 4:26 p.m.

The U.S. Department of Justice would curtail or postpone civil litigation during a government shutdown and would furlough 17,742 employees, or about 15 percent of its workforce starting tomorrow, according to a contingency plan.

While many Justice Department positions would be excepted from furloughs during a government shutdown, the legal activities divisions would be among the hardest hit by furloughs.

The Civil Division would have 71 percent of its 1,310 employees on furlough if Congress and the White House do not agree on a way to continue funding the government by midnight tonight.

This Week in The National Law Journal

Inside Washington: These special reports take a close look at what's happening at D.C. law firms, lobby shops and on Capitol Hill. The Legal Times 150 shows local firms are embracing austerity even as their ranks grow. In this year's Influence 50, which measures lobbying revenue, Patton Boggs was knocked out of the first-place spot for the first time since 2007. Finally, the second annual Hill Hot List features top-notch congressional lawyers.

Harmony in Antitrust Enforcement: For decades, antitrust lawyers at the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have squabbled over turf, but now the two agencies are moving toward a rare level of harmony. Jenna Greene has the story.

Precedents on the Line: Marcia Coyle previews cases to watch in the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court term. The Roberts Court will confront pleas to reconsider or overrule a number of key decisions undergirding hot-button issues on the new term's docket.

The Morning Wrap

Suing: The Justice Department plans to announce a lawsuit today challenging North Carolina's voter identification law. "Critics said the law will disenfranchise African-American and elderly voters, while the Republican-led General Assembly in Raleigh said the law will protect the state’s voters from potential fraud," The Charlotte Observer reports. More coverage here in The New York Times and here in POLITICO.

On the brink: From The Washington Post today: "Washington area could lose $200 million a day if shutdown occurs, economist says." Stephen Fuller, director of George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis, told the Post: “The national economy may not notice a shutdown much unless it lasts three or four weeks. But for the Washington area, this is a tsunami.” From The New York Times, this assessment: Wall Street Uneasy in Face of Government Shutdown."

Second half: The Los Angeles Times reports: "The second phase of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill trial begins Monday in New Orleans, restarting a legal juggernaut that could saddle the energy giant with the largest environmental penalty in U.S. history, determine the future health of the Gulf of Mexico and calculate, finally, the amount of crude oil that spewed from the crippled well." More coverage here and here.

Appellate Judge Warns of Congressional Overreach on Patent Reform

A federal appellate judge warned Friday that patent reform bills circulating on Capitol Hill threaten to erode the power of the courts to decide how cases are heard.

At a conference in Washington, Judge Kathleen O'Malley of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the legislation doesn't touch substantive reforms to the law but instead would make changes to litigation case management.

"The things in these current proposals don't fit squarely or neatly within the congressional authority and they go way beyond where I think anyone should want Congress to tread," O'Malley said at the conference, hosted by the advocacy group Innovation Alliance, which represents the interests of patent owners.