The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

The Morning Wrap

Sentence Starts: Former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. reported to a North Carolina prison for a sentence of more than two years for convictions of taking campaign funds, the same prison as other high-profile felons such as Bernie Madoff, The Chicago Tribune reports.

Going to California: Edward DuMont of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr in Washington is headed west, appointed as the California Solicitor General, The Recorder reports.

Major League Beards: The American Mustache Institute sends Boston Red Sox general counsel Ed Weiss a marketing cease-and-desist letter that, among other things, claims a violation of the Sexually Dynamic Mustached American Lifestyle trademark, Corporate Counsel reports.

Potholes and Tolls on the Road to ACA Compliance

As uncertainty over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act makes headlines in Washington, D.C., in-house and outside counsel at the Association of Corporate Counsel's Annual Meeting in Los Angeles Monday warned business leaders that the road to ACA compliance is fraught with potholes and unavoidable tolls.

Despite the recent focus on issues concerning the ACA provision known as the "individual mandate," the "employer mandate" has its own challenges for companies, lawyers from Ogletree, Deakins, Nash, Smoak & Stewart and Canam Steel Corp. said. Under the employer mandate, businesses have until January 2015 to give reasonably priced health insurance to employees or risk fines. The provision applies to companies with at least 50 full-time employees—including full-time equivalent workers—who work more than 30 hours per week.

Speaking at the ACC event, Ogletree Deakins shareholder Penny Wofford said businesses can't escape costs related to the ACA. Companies have to decide whether they will give health insurance to all their full-time employees or accept penalties for noncompliance.

Judicial Nominations Fight to Flare Up

Updated 4:41 p.m.

The Senate is poised for a renewed fight over executive and judicial nominations, including President Barack Obama's three picks for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced today he will move forward on "a number of vital nominations" before Thanksgiving. Republicans have systematically delayed or blocked "scores of President Obama's judicial and executive branch nominations" despite an agreement earlier this year, Reid said on the Senate floor.

"Obstruction has reared its ugly head. And we have a backlog now," Reid said on the Senate floor. "It's time to move forward without delay and fill those crucial posts." He did not identify by name any particular nominee.

Reid later filed cloture on the nomination of one of the D.C. Circuit nominees — Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld partner Patricia Millett — meaning he will try to force a vote sometime this week.

Justice Dept. Considers Appeal of Fast and Furious Ruling

The court ruling that kept alive the House Oversight Committee's lawsuit over the Fast and Furious gun program "implicates the constitutional separation of powers between the branches" and could be challenged on appeal, the U.S. Justice Department says in a newly filed court document.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson on Sept. 30 refused to dismiss the House committee's suit, which seeks the enforcement of a subpoena for information about how the Justice Department responded to congressional inquiries about the flawed firearms operation. The government has asserted executive privilege to shield certain documents from Congress.

Justice Department lawyers had urged Jackson not to wade too far into the case, filed in August 2012, on the contention that Congress and the executive branch would ultimately resolve the dispute over documents. “Judicial restraint, not judicial intervention, is warranted,” the department’s legal team told Jackson last October.

Obama Praises New FBI Director Comey

President Barack Obama today used a courtroom anecdote to illustrate why he thought James Comey, a longtime former prosecutor who earlier served as the second-in-command at the U.S. Department of Justice, was the right pick to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Obama, speaking at a ceremony for Comey today at FBI headquarters, touted Comey's effort to establish confidence in the American justice system. The president described Comey as a tough prosecutor who took on white-collar crime, sought to stem the tide of gun violence and confronted organized crime.

"There's a story from the time during his prosecution of the Gambino crime family, one of the defendants was an alleged hit man named Lorenzo," Obama said.

"During the trial, Jim won an award from the New York City Bar Association. When the court convened the next morning, everybody was buzzing about it," Obama said. "And suddenly a note was passed down from the defendant's table across the aisle to the prosecutor's table."

Williams & Connolly Seeks Legal Fees in Libel Suit

Updated 9:10 a.m. 10/29/2013

Attorneys from Williams & Connolly and Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz are seeking more than $200,000 in legal fees and costs for their work fighting a libel suit filed in September 2012 against Foreign Policy magazine and a writer.

Yasser Abbas, the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, sued Foreign Policy over a June 2012 article written by Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Schanzer was also a defendant. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan dismissed the case on Sept. 30. Abbas intends to take the fight to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. 

Williams & Connolly partner Kevin Baine, who focuses on First Amendment work, and associates Adam Tarosky and Elise Baumgarten, are seeking $100,481 in legal fees and costs. Levine Sullivan partner Nathan Siegel, an attorney for Schanzer, is asking for $107,174 in fees. Siegel worked on the case with Levine partner Seth Berlin and associate Shaina Jones. (Schanzer had his owner lawyers; he was not an employee of Foreign Policy.)

Portrait of Female Justices Unveiled

The Supreme Court's four female justices are joined together in a new portrait unveiled today at the National Portrait Gallery in D.C. Famed portraitist Nelson Shanks, who painted the life-sized work, was on hand this morning as the press was given a first glimpse.

A seated Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Sonia Sotomayor, seen standing behind her, look somber, while Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seated next to O'Connor, and Justice Elena Kagan, standing next to Sotomayor, have faint smiles. They are wearing their black robes, with differing neckwear that accurately reflects their preferences.

The four justices have not yet seen the portrait, but will tonight -- along with some of their colleagues -- at a private event at the gallery.

This Week in The National Law Journal

Costly Side Effects: As JPMorgan Chase & Co. hammers out a $13 billion settlement with the government, the bank has more to worry about than paying Uncle Sam and consumers. Any settlement would also have direct repercussions in a $10 billion lawsuit Deutsche Bank National Trust Co. has filed over shoddy assets. Jenna Greene reports.

Spill Settlement: Amanda Bronstad reports on the latest set of court challenges related to the $9.6 billion Deepwater Horizon settlement.

Class of '13: The incoming law school class of 2010 graduated in May, took the bar in July, and now are launching their legal careers. Karen Sloan recently caught up with three of them to see what they are doing now, how they feel about their law school experience and what advice they have for those following in their footsteps.

The Morning Wrap

No 'Recant': Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit explains how one innocuous sentence in his new book turned into a media examination of whether he "recanted" on voter ID laws, in New Republic.

Explosive Evidence: A trial starts today in the U.K. phone-hacking scandal related to Rupert Murdoch's News of the World newspaper, AFP reports.

Not On Prime Time: The Washington Post turns to The National Law Journal's Tony Mauro to describe all the ways the U.S. Supreme Court's traditions trump new technology, compared to how the New Mexico Supreme Court's arguments were aired online last week.

JPMorgan Settles With Housing Agency for $5.1B

The Federal Housing Finance Agency reached settlements worth $5.1 billion with JPMorgan Chase & Co. in connection with residential mortgage-backed securities and single-family mortgages purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the agency announced today.

JPMorgan agreed to pay $4 billion—$1.26 billion to Fannie Mae and $2.74 billion to Freddie Mac—to address claims that the company violated federal and state securities laws when it sold securities to the companies between 2005 and 2007. That settlement includes securities sold by JPMorgan, Bear Stearns Cos. Inc. and Washington Mutual.

JPMorgan also agreed to pay $1.1 billion—$670 million to Fannie Mae and $480 million to Freddie Mac—to resolve representation and warranty claims related to single-family mortgage purchases by the two companies. The deal is reportedly part of a larger $13 billion settlement that JPMorgan is preparing to make with the U.S. Department of Justice.