The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times

D.C. Lawyers Renominated to Superior Court

Three Washington attorneys picked last year for the District of Columbia Superior Court were renominated yesterday by President Barack Obama.

The nominations of William Nooter, Sherry Trafford and Steven Wellner are back on track for consideration by the Senate. Unlike federal court nominees, who go before the Senate Judiciary Committee, nominees to the District's local courts are handled by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

The Senate returned dozens of judicial nominees and other executive appointees to the White House on Jan. 3. Legal Times' Todd Ruger has more on how President Obama's federal court nominees fared.

Former Croatian Military Official Sues to Remove Sanctions

Ante Gotovina, a retired Croatian military official acquitted of war crimes charges in 2012, is suing the U.S. Department of Treasury to lift economic sanctions against him in place for more than a decade.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia convicted Gotovina of war crimes in connection with a military operation in Croatia in 1995. In 2012, the Appeals Chamber of the tribunal reversed his conviction and set him free.

The U.S. government listed Gotovina as a Specially Designated National in 2003, subjecting him to economic sanctions. After his acquittal, Gotovina asked the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control to remove the designation, to no avail, according to the complaint he filed yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

This Week in The National Law Journal

Pro Bono Hot List: Which attorneys stand out for the time they volunteered for nonprofit causes in 2013? The National Law Journal takes a look in its annual pro bono report.

Courts Join NSA Fight: The U.S. Supreme Court may have to rule upon the National Security Agency's data gathering after two federal judges came to such widely different conclusions about the agency's telephone surveillance program in December, Andrew Ramonas, Todd Ruger and Tony Mauro report.

Of Bandmates and Bad Blood: The desire to prevent former bandmates from trading on past rock and roll glory is driving two similar federal trademark cases, Sheri Qualters reports.

John Marshall Law Has Its First Skadden Fellow: Karen Sloan reports on how Sarah Hess beat the odds.

Disciplinary Suspensions Mount Against D.C.-Area Attorney

A local attorney has been suspended from practicing in the District of Columbia and Maryland for the second time since 2009 for breaking attorney ethics rules.

Garland Stillwell was first suspended in 2009 for misrepresenting his title at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, where he was formerly an associate. On Dec. 26, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ordered Stillwell suspended following his suspension earlier this year in Maryland for mismanaging client funds and other misconduct.

Stillwell faced a series of disciplinary actions from high courts in Maryland and the District beginning in 2009. The D.C. Court of Appeals initially suspended Stillwell for 60 days in 2009 for misrepresenting his employment status at Pillsbury. Stillwell told clients he was senior counsel at the firm, as opposed to an associate.

Roberts Warns of Impact of Budget Cuts on Judiciary

UPDATED AT 8:14 p.m.

In his annual year-end report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. on Tuesday warned that continued severe budget cuts would result in courtroom layoffs, trial delays and a “deepening threat to public safety at courts around the country.”

Perpetuating “a hard freeze at the sequester level,” Roberts said, would extend an emergency $15-per-hour rate reduction for private lawyers representing indigent criminal defendants, and reduced security for court personnel. It would also “pose a genuine threat to public safety” by postponing criminal trials, while delays on the civil side would mean “commercial uncertainty, lost opportunities and unvindicated rights.”

Roberts said he would have preferred to focus on other matters in his annual report, but “the budget remains the single most important issue facing the courts.” The entire federal judiciary accounts for just two-tenths of one percent of total federal outlays, he noted, but the cuts imposed by sequestration have severely hampered court operations.

This Week in The National Law Journal

2013... Oh, You: 2013 was the year that made the legal, judicial and political scenarios in "The Good Wife," "Homeland" or "House of Cards" look, well, plausible. It's the Year In Review edition for this New Year's Eve Eve.

Supreme Court: Monumental rulings on civil and voting rights in 2013 are helping to define the Roberts Court for some time to come, Marcia Coyle and Tony Mauro write.

Legal Biz: Some firms got hitched; others were left standing at the altar. Plus, John Edwards returned to the practice. A survey of 2013's notable business developments, Andrew Ramonas writes.

The Morning Wrap

Lawful: A federal judge in New York ruled Friday that the Nation Security Agency's gathering of information about all telephone calls placed in, to and from the United States is lawful, the New York Law Journal reports. U.S. District Judge William Pauley III concluded in American Civil Liberties Union v. Clapper that the NSA's telephony metadata program is reasonable under the Fourth Amendment, given the "horrific" consequences of international terrorism as shown on Sept. 11, 2001.

Dismissed: A federal judge in New Orleans has thrown out nearly all remaining lawsuits against the federal government for damages that resulted from levees and floodwalls that failed during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, The Times-Picayune reports.

Signing Up: More than 1 million people have signed up for health insurance through the troubled Healthcare.gov, The Associated Press reports.

DOJ Lawyer Disciplined for Lapsed Bar Membership

From 1990 to 2011, a U.S. Department of Justice lawyer practiced law without an active bar membership, according to a letter issued last month by District of Columbia attorney disciplinary officials.

Laura Heiser received an informal admonition—the least severe form of disciplinary action—for failing to maintain an active law license and giving false information to the Justice Department about her status with the D.C. Bar.

Heiser was a lawyer with the Justice Department from September 1986 through January 2013, according to the department. The letter from the Office of Bar Counsel indicated she worked in the Antitrust Division. Her membership with the Ohio bar lapsed in 1989, according to the letter, and she became an inactive member of the D.C. Bar in 1990.

The Morning Wrap

NSA Reforms: President Barack Obama said Friday that he would look over the National Security Agency's surveillance activities during the holidays and would make a "pretty definitive statement" in January about potential reforms, The Washington Post reports. Speaking at a year-end news conference, Obama said that "just because we can do something doesn't mean we should."

IRS Head: The Senate on Friday confirmed John Koskinen to lead the Internal Revenue Service, POLITICO reports. He was the non-executive chairman of Freddie Mac from 2008 to 2011. The IRS hasn't had a permanent head in more than a year.

New Judge: The Senate on Friday also confirmed Brian Davis as a judge for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, the Orlando Sentinel reports. Davis, a Nassau County circuit judge, was first nominated for the federal judgeship in February 2012.

Boies Schiller Partner Nominated to D.C. Federal Trial Court

Tanya Chutkan, a partner in the Washington office of Boies, Schiller & Flexner, is President Barack Obama's latest pick to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Chutkan was one of eight U.S. district court nominees the White House announced late yesterday. The president also named two nominees to federal appellate courts.

An attorney at Boies Schiller since 2002, Chutkan's practice specializes in antitrust class actions and other complex litigation. She was part of the legal team that won a $162 million judgment earlier this year in a price-fixing class action against Chinese manufacturers of Vitamin C. Her practice also includes white-collar defense.