More Prominent Prosecutors Leaving For Private Practice
Some recent notable moves from government to private practice.
A leading indicator when it comes to the health of law firms: an increasingly rapid spinning of the revolving door between government and private practice. When times are good, top prosecutors and other government lawyers get wooed by leading law firms that are flush with cash; when times are bad, these lawyers hang on to their secure government jobs for dear life.
Over the past few years, a number of top Justice Department lawyers have headed for private practice. Last year, of course, former attorney general Eric Holder returned to Covington & Burling, where he was reunited with former criminal division head Lanny Breuer.
More recently, former acting associate attorney general Stuart Delery joined Gibson Dunn earlier this month. And the revolving door spins on the plaintiffs’ side too: Sean McKessy, former head of the SEC’s whistleblower program, recently moved to Phillips & Cohen, a top law firm in the qui tam space.
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The moves are happening closer to home as well. Here in New York, prominent prosecutors are leaving the legendary Southern District of New York for greener pastures. The latest notable move, reported by the New York Law Journal:
Litigation boutique MoloLamken has brought on Jessica Ortiz, the former chief of the narcotics unit at the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s Office. Ortiz is the first woman partner of the 25-attorney boutique….
Ortiz, 38, spent the last eight years at the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including a year and a half as head of the narcotics unit. She left in July.
She led 15 jury trials to conviction and worked on cases related to fraud, computer crimes, corporate embezzlement, public corruption involving city officials, health care fraud, organized crime, narcotics and murder.
With all this trial experience, Ortiz will fit right in at the elite boutique. Even though many of its partners came over from Biglaw, where settling cases is the order of the day, MoloLamken is a firm that actually goes to trial.
Some other notable S.D.N.Y. departures (not intended to be an exhaustive list, of course):
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- Arlo Devlin-Brown: the former chief of the public corruption unit — who also has extensive experience handling securities cases, making him especially attractive to Biglaw — joined Covington & Burling as a partner a few weeks ago. (Devlin-Brown was also a star on the college parliamentary debate circuit. Speaking of APDA, a number of ex-debaters — Mark Oppenheimer, Jed Shugerman, and yours truly — will be live-tweeting the presidential debate tonight.)
- Nicole Friedlander: the former chief of the complex frauds and cybercrime unit joined Sullivan & Cromwell as counsel — make that special counsel — this month. This also makes sense; S&C senior chairman Rodge Cohen believes that threats to cybersecurity are a major threat to American business.
- Jessica Masella: the former co-chief of the narcotics unit became a DLA Piper partner in August.
- Brendan McGuire: A former head of both the public corruption unit and the terrorism unit, McGuire joined the partnership of WilmerHale in May. (A shout-out to our shared alma mater, Regis High School.)
- Sara Shudofsky: the former head of the civil division joined Arnold & Porter as a partner in June.
And what about U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara himself? I suspect that the high-powered prosecutor has his sights on elected office — but if he were to cool his heels at the law firm in the interim, he’d be able to negotiate quite a deal for himself.
Should we be troubled by how rapidly the revolving door turns? It certainly raises concerns, and former government lawyers and the firms that hire them must make sure that they comply with all applicable rules of legal ethics.
Should those rules be tightened, to prevent such moves or to require a long period of time before a jump? I’m not sure that’s possible without negatively affecting the ranks of lawyers who are willing to enter government service. Working in public service is already a financial sacrifice, but lawyers are willing to do it because they know that they can make it up later in the private sector. If we deny them even that possibility, we must be prepared for a serious decline in both the number and quality of lawyers who are willing to go into government.
Critics of the revolving door might call it a former of “soft corruption.” Even assuming that’s true, it strikes me as far better than the hard corruption of a Sheldon Silver.
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SDNY Narcotics Unit Chief Leaves to Join Boutique [New York Law Journal]
Ex-SDNY Prosecutor Joins Litigation Boutique MoloLamken [Law360]
Longtime U.S. Prosecutor to Join Covington & Burling [DealBook / New York Times]
Southern District Assistants Leaving for Private Practice [New York Law Journal]
Preet Bharara’s Wall St. Task Force Has a Shifting Roster of Lawyers [DealBook / New York Times]
David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.
