This is the worst piece of whoring journalism I have read in a long time. How long are you going to suck [U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara]’s teat? All to hurt a decent, honest witness, [whom assistant U.S. attorney Reed] Brodsky could not lay a glove on. It did not work. The jury was not impressed by the worst cross examination ever delivered. So in the style of Preet, try to smear him by working the sycophants in the back of the Courtroom. He learned from Schumer in the Senate… Preet is scared sh[**]less he is going to lose this case so he feeds his whores at the WSJ. What a disgrace for an otherwise great paper.
We all wanted to give Raj the benefit of the doubt. I wanted to believe he was an honest man. How could someone so smart and rich already be involved in something so horrendous?
(According to the Wall Street Journal, Rajaratnam “is estimated to have paid as much as $40 million for his defense… about two-thirds of the amount prosecutors said [his Galleon Group hedge fund] made from the insider trading addressed in the charges.”)
Raj Rajaratnam, the billionaire leader of the Galleon Group, has been found guilty.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all 14 counts Rajaratnam was facing — nine counts of insider trading and five of conspiracy. Rajaratnam could get a sentence of up to 19 and a half years under the federal sentencing guidelines, according to prosecutors.
Rajaratnam’s defense lawyer, John Dowd of Akin Gump, is a renowned advocate — but he’s not a miracle worker. Raj was just too big a target.
Check out our sister site Dealbreaker for continuing coverage.
After seven days of deliberations, one juror in the insider trading trial of Raj Rajaratnam has been dismissed, for unspecified medical reasons. An alternate has been seated, but this means the jury has to begin its deliberations anew. The original jurors must be thrilled.
Let’s hope that the dismissed juror was a holdout (either way). The suspense is killing us!
Readers: Any predictions on how this will turn out? Will celebrated criminal defense lawyer John Dowd — who successfully represented the fabulous Monica Goodling, among others — pull this off? Or will the prosecutors of the legendary S.D.N.Y. get their man?
– John Dowd, leading criminal defense attorney and Akin Gump partner, responding (or not responding) to reporters’ inquiries about the whereabouts of his client, Raj Rajaratnam. The jury in Rajaratnam’s insider trading trial is still deliberating.
* What’s the secret to lawyer happiness? And no, it doesn’t involve illegal drugs or porn stars (Charlie Sheen isn’t a lawyer). [Slaw via Legal Blog Watch]
* Want to start your own law blog? Read this interesting interview with BL1Y (a regular in the ATL comments section). [Lawyerist]
* Superstar criminal defense lawyer John Dowd, the Akin Gump partner who successfully got Monica Goodling (among many other clients) out of legal trouble, offered a rousing defense of Raj Rajaratnam today. [Dealbreaker]
* Elsewhere in Ken Starr news, it seems that some celebs are getting hit with IRS tax liens as a result of their ties to him. [TaxProf Blog]
* Congratulations to a 3L at Harvard Law School, Nneka Ukpai, who trounced the prosecution at trial and won an acquittal for her client. [Yolanda Young / On Being a Black Lawyer]
* Congratulations to a 3L at NYU Law and future S.D.N.Y. law clerk, Eli Northrup, who belongs to a hip-hop band called Pants Velour — which has, in the words of our tipster, “captured the magic of Charlie Sheen as only music can.” [YouTube]
“My Gump, my Gump, my lovely Akin Gump. Check it out….“
What’s going on at Akin Gump? That seems to be what many of you are wondering, based on some comments posted to a recent open thread featuring the firm:
“What is happening to Akin Gump DC? I saw that a bunch of lit partners just left.”
“I’ve heard the same thing…. Akin appears to be losing tons of partners and the DC office is rumored to be in turmoil. It does, however, have Tom Goldstein, which is sure to attract gunners who think they’ll be arguing cases in three years.”
“I read somewhere that the changes at Akin are part of some larger strategic plan. Anyone know anything about that?”
As a matter of fact, yes — Kim Eisler does. He writes, over at Washingtonian:
Over the past few months, 950-lawyer Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has lost about 45 lawyers, including two of its rainmakers, Michael Madigan and Richard Wyatt Jr. Tensions are said to be high, with partners in the New York office unhappy that the Washington lawyers are not producing their share of revenue. To increase productivity, Akin Gump pushed out 5 percent of its lawyers who, in management’s view, were not generating enough income. The firm also closed its office in Taipei, one of 12 it maintained outside of Washington, and insiders predict the money-losing Beijing office will be next to go. The China offices have been expensive failures in the eyes of New York partners, who are pressing Washington to stop the bleeding….
The firm still has several stars, including criminal-defense lawyers John Dowd and Michele Roberts, Supreme Court litigator Tom Goldstein, and lobbying-practice head Joel Jankowsky, and is counting on them to pull Akin Gump out of its tailspin.
These boldface names are familiar to the ATL readership. John Dowd is the defense lawyer of Monica Goodling (and the former boss of the Akin Gump Escort). Tom Goldstein, the celebrated SCOTUS litigator, was a judge on ATL Idol.
To read more about comings and goings at Akin Gump, check out Eisler’s complete piece, available over here. Clock Is Ticking for Strauss’s Firm [Capital Comment / Washingtonian] Earlier: Fall Recruiting Open Thread: Vault 31-40 (2009)
Earlier this year, wedevotedextensivecoverage to the Akin Gump Escort. She was the legal secretary at Akin Gump who worked for powerhouse lawyer John Dowd by day, and alleged D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey by night.
Courtesy of WTOP, we now know more about the close working relationship between the Akin Gump Escort and the D.C. Madam:
“Why did you do this to me? I never did anything to you.”
That accusatory two-sentence e-mail from alleged D.C. madam Deborah Jeane Palfrey to an escort she considered her “little sister” and one of her most trusted confidantes came moments after Palfrey realized her assets had been frozen by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
“My first thought because of the timing was that (Jennifer) was working with the government,” writes Palfrey, in a series of e-mails to WTOP.
“Jennifer” was the name escort customers knew for a legal secretary at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a prominent D.C. law firm. The woman was fired in May 2007, shortly after revealing to the firm that she had moonlighted for Palfrey’s Pamela Martin & Associates between 2002 and 2006.
Fired? She should have been promoted, due to her intimate knowledge of servicing clients.
More discussion after the jump.
This is a continuation of our earlier post, in which we kicked off our liveblogging of the Monica Goodling testimony before the House Judiciary Committee.
11:00: Some friendly questioning from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), Ranking Republican Member of the Judiciary Committee. We once sat next to him at a dinner party; he’s a very nice man.
11:05: Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-CA) is a style nightmare. White blazer, red tank-toppy-looking blouse. Congresswoman Sanchez: this is the United States Congress, not a July 4th booze cruise.
11:07: In terms of her demeanor, Goodling is not going down the diva route. She’s very polite and helpful, interspersing her remarks with self-effacing or nervous smiles. It seems that she’s trying to be as forthcoming as possible as a witness.
Discussion resumes after the jump.
Apparently we weren’t the only ones who got blue balls from felt cheated by 20/20′s report last Friday on the alleged DC madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey. Professor Ann Althouse writes:
Were you, like me duped into watching “20/20″ last night to hear what names they’d name based on the big list forked over to them by Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who’s accused of running a prostitution ring in Washington?
“Our decision at the end was not to name any names,” said Brian Ross, the news correspondent who presented the segment. Mr. Ross said that the network went with a “conservative approach,” and that “based on our reporting it turned out not to be as newsworthy as we thought in terms of the names.”
At least they’re being honest — it seems — in not pretending they’d belatedly discovered some ethical compunction about it.
Like Professor Althouse, we were also duped, seduced by ABC’s advertising promising a salacious broadcast. We rushed home from a party on Friday night so we wouldn’t miss the 20/20 special report, which we were expecting to be sensational. We were disappointed.
Sigh. Well, at least there was a shout-out to the Akin Gump escort:
Sometimes when Palfrey was unavailable [to answer the phones], a legal secretary at one of Washington’s top law firms, Akin Gump, would handle the calls as well as go out on calls herself.
Using her e-mail account at Akin Gump, the secretary told Palfrey why she wanted to be an escort: “A day a week would be fun and spa money.”
And from an ATL source, here’s more gossip about the Akin Gump Escort, a former secretary to powerhouse partner John Dowd, the criminal defense lawyer now representing Monica Goodling:
This secretary likes to shop at high-end stores. She also drives luxury vehicles.
An escort with a weakness for fashion and the finer things? Color us surprised.
This could, however, be advantageous for Monica Goodling. If we were John Dowd, we’d instruct the Akin Gump Escort to take Monica Goodling shopping for a new suit, before Goodling’s anticipated congressional testimony. Brian Ross Reports on the D.C. Madam [ABC News / 20/20] ABC fakes us out about naming names [Althouse]
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Ed. note: The Asia Chronicles column is authored by Kinney Recruiting. Kinney has made more placements of U.S. associates, counsels and partners in Asia than any other recruiting firm in each of the past six years. You can reach them by email: asia@kinneyrecruiting.com.
Deal flow has clearly picked recently up for most US associates, counsels and partners in Hong Kong/China and Singapore. We are on the phone with a lot of these folks on a daily basis, many of whom we have known for years. Further, the head of our Asia team, Evan Jowers, and Kinney’s founder and president, Robert Kinney, frequently meet in person with leading US partners in Asia to assess their needs and keep on top of the inside scoop at as many firms as possible. The need for legal recruiting help in Asia from experienced recruiters appears to be live and well. In March, Evan and Robert were in Beijing at such meetings, in April, Evan was in Hong Kong, and for half of June Evan will be in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Thus its pretty easy for us to tell when there has been an across-the-market pick up in capital markets and corporate work.
On an average day in Asia when Evan and Robert visit firms, they typically have 5 to 9 meetings a day, mostly with US partners in the market. The reason they have these meetings is not simply because Kinney makes a lot of US attorney placements in Asia and that a particular firm may have openings; instead these are just visits with friends. After years of working together as business partners, the folks at Kinney are actually these peoples’ friends. The firms Kinney work closely with in Asia (which is just about every law firm – call us if you want to know the one firm in the world we will never place anyone with again, ever, and why) look forward to the visits, or at least act like they do. After seven years in the market, many of the client partners are former associate candidates. Also, these US partners see Kinney as a very good source of market information as well, because they know how deep their contacts are in the market and how frequently they are speaking to counterparts at peer firms.
In a land that is right here and in a time that is right now, a technology has arisen so powerful that it can replace basic human document review. Is it time to bow down before our new robot overlords?
First, here’s a little story about me: my life in the legal world began as a paralegal. My first case was a GIANT patent infringement case that was already six years old and had involved as many as five companies, multiple US courts, the ITC and an international standards committee. I knew nothing about any of this.
On my first day, my supervisor (a paralegal with at least eight other cases driving her crazy) sat me down in front of a Concordance database with a 100,000+ patents and patent file histories. “Code these,” she said. I learned that “coding”, for the purposes of this exercise, meant manually typing the inventor’s name, the title of the patent, the assignee, the file date, and other objective data for each document. I worked on that project – and only that project – for at least the first six months of my job. After a week or so, time began to blur.
What I know, in retrospect and with absolutely certainty, is that as time began to blur, so did my judgment. So did my attention to detail. If you could tell me that I did not make at least one mistake a day – one inconsistent spelling, one reversed day and month, one incorrectly spaced title – I frankly would need to see your evidence. I would not believe it. The human mind is trainable but it is not a machine.
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