eDiscovery

Who's Who In The Race To Become The Special Master Over The Docs Seized In The Cohen Raid

Who's in the running to be the Special Master in the Cohen case?

By  
on

(Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP/Getty Images)

Judge Kimba Wood is presiding over the disposition of materials seized in the FBI raid of Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen — and she isn’t taking any sh*t from anyone. But she still hasn’t made a decision on how exactly the potentially privileged materials in the government’s haul will be handled.

Prosecutors urge that a “taint team,” walled off from the investigative team, will most “fairly and most efficiently accomplish this task.” The defense, meanwhile, lost their bid to get first crack at the documents. The obvious middle ground, which Judge Wood is still considering, is appointing a Special Master to oversee the initial review of the materials.

Yesterday both sides submitted their proposed list of Special Masters, and as Colby Hamilton of Law.com noted, they are “tellingly different.”

The defense has put forward their list of four former prosecutors all currently ensconced in private practice, or as our own resident white-collar expert Joe Patrice says “someone who currently represents criminals and has a vested interest in defining privilege broadly.” The government offered three options — all experienced former magistrate judges.

Here’s everything you need to know about the list of potential Special Masters.

Defense List

Sponsored

Bart Schwartz, Chairman, Guidepost Solutions

  • J.D. New York University School of Law
  • Former Chief of the Criminal Division in the Southern District of New York under U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani
  • Independent monitor, assigned by the U.S. Department of Justice, to oversee General Motors’ compliance under a DOJ deferred prosecution agreement

Joan McPhee, Partner, Ropes & Gray

  • J.D. Harvard Law School
  • Former Deputy Chief of the Appeals Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
  • Lead trial counsel in a successful representation of a drilling engineer in a case related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

Tai H. Park, Partner, Park Jensen Bennett

Sponsored

  • J.D. New York University School of Law
  • Former Senior Trial Counsel in the Securities & Commodities Fraud Task Force in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
  • Appointed as Integrity Monitor for a major not-for-profit organization by various City and State agencies

George S. Canellos, Partner, Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy

  • J.D. Columbia Law School
  • Former co-director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement
  • Conducted an internal investigation for a financial institution into whistleblower allegations of corrupt payments in South Asia

Government List

Hon. Frank Maas, Retired Federal Magistrate Judge, JAMS Neutral

  • J.D. New York University School of Law
  • 17 years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York and former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York
  • Frequent speaker on e-discovery issues at the Conference on Preservation Excellence and the E-Discovery Institute Leadership Summit

Hon. Theodore Katz, Retired Federal Magistrate Judge, JAMS Neutral

  • J.D. Columbia Law School
  • 21 years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York overseeing over 5,000 cases
  • Served on the Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York

Hon. James C. Francis IV, Retired Federal Magistrate Judge, Distinguished Lecturer CUNY Law School

  • J.D. Yale Law School
  • 32 years as a United States Magistrate Judge in the Southern District of New York and former Director of Prisoners’ Rights Project at the Legal Aid Society
  • Frequent lecturer on electronic discovery, employment litigation, constitutional torts, legal ethics, and pretrial practice

headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

Topics

, , ,