Spies

Former Dewey & LeBoeuf Partner Kisses and Tells
(About D&L, Not His Alleged Affair With a Russian Spy)

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John Altorelli

Who is to blame for the recent troubles afflicting Dewey & LeBoeuf, the global mega-firm created from the 2007 merger of Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb? In our recent reader poll, we offered four options: the legacy Dewey side, the legacy LeBoeuf side, both sides, or neither side.

Prominent M&A and private equity lawyer John Altorelli, who recently left Dewey to become a partner at DLA Piper, has some opinions on this issue. In a recent interview with Am Law Daily, he offered a candid diagnosis of what brought D&L to where it stands today, as well as an assessment of its future prospects.

Altorelli was less forthcoming when the New York Post contacted him over the weekend about his alleged love affair with a beautiful Russian spy (her picture after the jump)….

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(About D&L, Not His Alleged Affair With a Russian Spy)”

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Ilan Grapel: He’s No Austin Powers

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Who is the real spy? Ilan Grapel (left) or Austin Powers?

As we mentioned yesterday, a student at Emory Law School by the name of Ilan Chaim Grapel was arrested in Egypt on Sunday, and ordered held for 15 days. The Egyptians allege that Grapel is a “highly trained” spy, working for the state of Israel.

Ilan Grapel is a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen. And he did serve in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) prior to law school, as a paratrooper (which sounds pretty awesome bad-ass).

But does that make Ilan Grapel a spy? Some observers, including classmates of Ilan’s from Emory Law, find the allegation highly dubious….

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Law Student of the Day: Ilan Grapel, Accused of Spying for Israel

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Is this law student a spy?

At this year’s Emory Law School commencement, Professor Sara Stadler urged graduates to think outside the box with respect to their career options: “You might not be able to land that [top-choice] job…. You might have to move to Nebraska.… You might have to join a small firm where they don’t make the big bucks.”

Or you might have to… become a spy in the Middle East? Emory law student Ilan Grapel has been detained in Egypt, by authorities who allege that he is a “highly trained” spy working for Israel.

Ilan Grapel is… pretty cute. Is he a spy?

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A Speedy End to the Russian Spy Case

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That was fast. The criminal case against 10 Russian spies, which has captured the national imagination since their arrests on June 27, has been resolved. The New York Times reports:

In a seeming flashback to the cold war, Russian and American officials traded prisoners in the bright sunlight on the tarmac of Vienna’s international airport on Friday, bringing to a quick end an episode that had threatened to disrupt relations between the countries.

Planes carrying 10 convicted Russian sleeper agents and 4 men accused by Moscow of spying for the West swooped into the Austrian capital, once a hub of clandestine East-West maneuvering, and the men and women were transferred, the Justice Department said. The planes soon took off again in a coda fitting of an espionage novel.

It was a very dramatic scene. For more details on the spy exchange, see the Times and also the Washington Post (which reported that the idea of a spy swap was first developed weeks ago by the Obama administration).

Let’s take a look at some of the legal angles to this story….

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