Guantanamo Bay

Is It Time To Close Guantanamo Bay?

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Earlier this week, President Barack Obama reiterated his interest in shutting down the prison at Guantanamo Bay: “I’ve asked my team to review everything that’s currently being done in Guantanamo, everything that we can do administratively, and I’m going to reengage with Congress to try to make the case that this is not in the best interests of the American people.”

President Obama isn’t alone in being troubled by goings-on at Guantanamo. This morning I attended an interesting panel discussion where a retired admiral, the former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, spoke out in favor of closing Gitmo….

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Non-Sequiturs: 04.04.11

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* Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried by a military commission at Guantanamo, but John Yoo is still not satisfied. He wants to capture people and hold them indefinitely without trial proof that the Obama Administration can conduct terror trials successfully. Obviously, the elegant solution is to make KSM live in Yoo’s basement until one of them begs for an impartial arbiter. [Ricochet]

* If you ever read the warnings on your prescriptions, I think this is what you’ll see (by Jeremy Blachman). [McSweeney]

* There is an epidemic of people slamming automobiles into legal structures. [ABA Journal]

* Stephen Colbert interviews a former Cravath attorney, Roy Den Hollander. I wish Colbert would do a “better know a law firm” series. [The Careerist]

* From Skadden to Dickstein Shapiro to stay-at-home mom. [But I Do Have A Law Degree...]

* This April Fool’s Blawg Review is no joke. [Fools in the Forest via Blawg Review]

* How would you describe a typical day in the life of an associate? (Hint: it’s a trick question.) [YouTube via Schola2Juris]

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Is Paul Weiss in Bed With Terrorists?
Leading law firm attacked in controversial WSJ op-ed.

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Paul Weiss logo.JPGThat’s the question essentially posed in a barn-burning op-ed piece in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, written by Debra Burlingame and Thomas Joscelyn. Burlingame is the sister of Charles Burlingame III, pilot of the American Airlines plane that was crashed at the Pentagon on September 11; Joscelyn is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Burlingame and Joscelyn begin their opinion piece, Gitmo’s Indefensible Lawyers, by discussing Paul Weiss partner Julia Tarver Mason (who, by the way, is rather attractive; she looks like a cross between Kristin Davis, aka Charlotte from Sex and the City, and Andie MacDowell). The WSJ op-ed writers claim that Mason improperly used “legal mail” — “privileged lawyer-client communications that are exempt from screening by security personnel” — to provide one of her clients, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, with inflammatory propaganda from Amnesty International (a brochure, written in Arabic, depicting alleged abuse against Arabs and Muslims by Americans).
Writes one of several ATL readers who brought this article to our attention:

Wow. I didn’t know that Paul Weiss was involved in such potentially dubious acts.

But did Paul Weiss actually do anything wrong? Let’s discuss….

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Leading law firm attacked in controversial WSJ op-ed.“

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Morning Docket 03.04.10

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the-hurt-locker.jpg* Good news: There’s going to be lots of in-house hiring. Bad news: It’ll probably lead to Biglaw firing. [Corporate Counsel]
* Sounds like this guy was thinking with his cock instead of his noggin. [Courthouse News Service]
* Liz Cheney attacks Eric Holder’s “Department of Jihad” for harboring terrorist sympathizers, i.e., attorneys who argued on behalf of Guantanamo detainees before the Supreme Court. [True/Slant]
* I like old people. Elie doesn’t. After we debated law firms’ mandatory retirement policies, we polled you; Elie’s position is winning with a narrow lead. Ashby Jones is on my side when it comes to law firm partners, but thinks federal judges should get booted at 85. [WSJ Law Blog]
* Early birds get the worm. Late birds get jail time? [Royal Oak Daily Tribune]
* Beware the overeager paralegal. [Boston Globe]
* Former AIG general counsel Anastasia Kelly quit after the U.S. pay czar insisted on pay limits for the financial giant. Now, she’s going to check out the merit-based model at DLA Piper. [Business Week]
* Hurt, indeed. The staff seargeant who inspired the Playboy article that inspired Hurt Locker’s screenplay has filed a multimillion dollar lawsuit for misappropriation of name and likeness; invasion of privacy; breach of contract; infliction of emotional distress; fraud; and negligent misrepresentation. [The Wrap]

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Musical Chairs: Greg Craig Out as White House Counsel, Bob Bauer In

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Gregory Craig Gregory B Craig Greg Craig Williams Connolly Above the Law Blog.jpgThe rumors circulated back in August, but now it looks like it’s finally happening. From Marc Ambinder, shortly before 11 on Thursday night:

Sources in government say that White House Counsel Gregory Craig has decided to resign, and that the president’s personal lawyer, Robert Bauer, will take his place. A formal announcement is slated next week, though word might drop tomorrow.

Looks like that announcement is getting sped up. More after the jump.
UPDATE: Greg Craig’s resignation letter, also after the jump.

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Morning Docket: 10.08.09

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Christopher Christie Christopher J Christie Chris Christie fat heavyset overweight obese.jpg* At the Supreme Court, much ado about a cross. [Washington Post (Robert Barnes); Washington Post (Dana Milbank)]
* Former Heller Ehrman partners deny that the firm was insolvent in 2007. [Am Law Daily]
* The new Honduran government, which came to power through a coup, has hired lawyers and law firms — including Lanny Davis, who recently moved from Orrick to McDermott — to defend its legitimacy. [New York Times]
* And there may be more work for antitrust lawyers, thanks to a new Justice Department invesitgation of IBM. [Reuters]
* Key Democratic lawyers agree to allow Guantanamo detainees to be transferred to the U.S. for trial. [Washington Post]
* Prosecutors drop one victim from the case, but Judge Herman “Who Needs A Spanking?” Thomas still faces charges dozens of counts related to 14 other victims. [CNN]
* No, it’s not your imagination: Gov. Jon Corzine’s campaign commercials are making fun of former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie (pictured) for being fat. (Disclosure: We worked as an AUSA under Christie from 2003 until 2006.) [New York Times]

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Much Better Than Document Review: Bingham Associate Testifies Before Congress

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Jason Pinney Jason S Pinney Bingham McCutchen.jpgWe like to highlight examples of Biglaw associates who get to do especially interesting or high-profile work. E.g., Lindsay Harrison, the Jenner & Block associate who argued a case — and won — before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Most lawyers tuned in to Congress yesterday were listening to Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings (even if day 4 was less than thrilling). But over on the House side, one young lawyer was talking rather than listening. Jason Pinney (pictured), a (rather handsome) sixth-year associate at Bingham McCutchen, got to testify before lawmakers.
Pinney addressed the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, specifically, the Subcommittee on International Organization, Human Rights and Oversight. He spoke about his work as part of a Bingham legal team representing a group of Uighurs detained at Guantanamo Bay. The Bingham lawyers obtained the release of two Uighurs in 2006 and four more Uighurs last month.
(As explained by the AP, “[t]he Uighurs, a Turkic minority from China’s far west, were sent to the U.S. facility in Cuba after their capture in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001. The Pentagon determined last year that they were not enemy combatants.” Oops!)
Congrats to the Bingham lawyers on their successful representation of their clients — and to Pinney on his congressional testimony. To download a copy of the testimony, click here.
Today in Congress: July 16, 2009 [Washington Post]
Lawmakers want investigation into Uighurs at Gitmo [AP]
Jason S. Pinney [Bingham McCutchen]
Pinney Testimony [PDF]

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Morning Docket 5.22.09

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baseball.jpg* Republicans slam Obama for his “empathy” standard for his SCOTUS nominee, citing an earlier speech on the Senate floor emphasizing a different standard. [The Washington Post]
* Speaking of Obama, is he “the best lawyer to occupy the U.S. presidency since William Howard Taft”? [Foreign Policy]
* The Yankees held a moot court in a room off the clubhouse. Would you want to face a jury of Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon? [The New York Times]
* The Justice Department has arranged for the first Guantanamo inmate to be tried in a New York court. [The Washington Post]
* Shuttered Chrysler dealers may have a tough time fighting their closures in court, due to the freedom that bankruptcy laws give courts to tear up contracts. [The Wall Street Journal]
* Immigrants are being deported in the middle of their court cases. [The Los Angeles Times]

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Morning Docket 5.19.09

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ambulance.jpg* A word of advice to the new summer associates: Paralegals can’t be trusted. [Legal Intelligencer]
* SCOTUS dismissed the lawsuit that sought to punish top Bush officials, including former Attorney General John Ashcroft, for detaining Muslims that were not involved in 9-11. [Christian Science Monitor]
* Military commission trials for Guantanamo detainees present many of the same challenges that the Bush administration faced, in spite of Obama’s facelift. [New York Times]
* The White House passed on an opportunity to bring a case involving gays in the military to the Supreme Court. Are they stalling and playing politics or are they right to say that the law should be changed in the legislature and not the courts? [Wall Street Journal (subscription)]
* What do potential SCOTUS nominees and ambulance chasers have in common? Uh, hopefully nothing…[Esquire]
* The court will hear a case against Sarbanes-Oxley in the fall term–is this the time to question too much oversight? [Washington Post]

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Morning Docket 02.24.09

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cross.jpg

* SCOTUS will look at the separation of church and state when they decide whether “a cross to honor fallen soldiers can stand in a national preserve in California.” [The Los Angeles Times]

* Lawyers say Madoff must have had help with his Ponzi scheme. [Bloomberg]

* Attorney General Eric Holder visited Guantanamo yesterday to see what is needed to close the prison. [The Associated Press]

* Meanwhile, a Pentagon official who inspected Guantanamo at Obama’s request is under fire from human rights activists for filing a report (which declares Gitmo humane) that is little more than good public relations for the administration. [The New York Times]

* What do you do when your boss gets indicted for securities fraud? You get another job. A team of seven bankruptcy lawyers left Dreier LLP for Epstein Becker Green. [EBG]

* A federal judge encouraged the Obama administration to decide whether to keep pursuing a case against 11 Vietnam War Veterans accused of trying to overthrow Laos’s communist government. [The Associated Press]

* Judge says: UBS must respond to the U.S. lawsuit seeking disclosure of 52,000 names of people who allegedly used Swiss accounts for tax evasion. [Bloomberg]

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