The NAFUSA Foundation has created the NAFUSA Foundation Intern Scholarship program which awards $5,000.00 scholarships to unpaid student interns who have performed outstanding work while interning at the United States Attorney’s Offices and the Department of Justice and for their achievements in law school.The Foundation has awarded its first four scholarships.
Suzanne Bell, Deputy Director and Chief of Staff of EOUSA, and the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices assisted the Foundation by recommending individuals who met the criteria set out by the Foundation. The recipients of the scholarships are Alana Cammack of the University of Alabama School of Law, nominated by the Middle District of Alabama; Hannah Cho of the University of California, Davis School of Law, nominated by the Western District of Washington; April Hartman of Loyola University, nominated by the EOUSA; and Kathryn Pflug of Notre Dame Law School, nominated by the District of Nebraska. These individuals’ work ethic, positive attitude, professionalism and drive will make them outstanding attorneys with a career path that we hope includes public service.
Thank you to Donna Bucella, Jessie Liu, Rich Rossman, Paul Coggins and Bill Lutz for coordinating these efforts with Foundation President, Edward L. Dowd, Jr.
We are delighted to be able to assist these very deserving young people.
Jones Walker LLP announced on January 25, 2022 that NAFUSA member Donald “Don” Washington has returned to the firm as a partner in the Litigation Practice Group on the corporate compliance and white collar defense team in the Lafayette office. Don returns to the firm after serving as the director of the US Marshals Service from 2019 to 2021. Don is a former member of NAFUSA’s board of directors and was the treasurer until his federal appointment.
Speaking about his return, Don said, “While it was an honor to serve our country and lead the US Marshals Service, it is a pleasure to return home to my colleagues at Jones Walker. I look forward to collaborating with our team and being able to use some of my recent experience to enhance the exceptional client service we provide to our clients.”
During his service leading the nation’s oldest federal law enforcement agency, he developed and established key agency priorities and strategies and oversaw the operations of nearly 5,500 US marshals, deputy marshals, criminal investigators, detention enforcement officers, and administrative staff. He led the storied agency through multiple operations to address the rise in violent crime, the turbulence of civil unrest, and the COVID-19 pandemic occurring in the United States and its territories, while protecting the federal judiciary, witnesses, and courts.
Bill Hines, managing partner of Jones Walker, said, “We are very proud of Don’s leadership of the US Marshals Service, and we are pleased to have him as our partner again at Jones Walker. He is a respected member of our law firm and the greater legal industry, and I am certain that his most recent role and past experience in the US Attorney’s Office will bolster our ability to provide excellent client service and train the next generation of Jones Walker litigators and other attorneys.”
Earlier in his career, Don served as US Attorney for the Western District of Louisiana from 2001 to early 2010. As the chief federal law enforcement officer in the Western District of Louisiana, he led federal investigations and trial teams as well as prosecuted cases involving criminal and civil violations of federal law. While with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), he held a number of leadership positions, including on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee; the DOJ-sponsored Executive Committee for Federal Prosecutors, State Attorneys General and District Attorneys; and the DOJ’s Terrorism, Controlled Substances, and Native American Issues committees.
On August 2, 2021, the Department of Justice announced that mail-order testing supplier Arriva Medical LLC (Arriva), and its parent, Alere Inc.) Alere) have agreed to pay $160 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act. The settlement resolves allegations that Arriva and Alere made, or caused, claims to Medicare that were false because kickbacks were paid to Medicare beneficiaries, patients were ineligible to receive meters, or patients were deceased.
The civil settlement includes the resolution of claims brought under the qui tam or whistleblower provisions of the False Claims Act by Gregory Goodman, a former employee at an Arriva call center in Antioch, Tennessee. Goodman was represented by NAFUSA member Jerry Martin (MD Tennessee 2010-2013). Under the FCA a private party can file an action on behalf of the United States and receive a portion of any recovery. The Act also permits the United States to intervene and take over the litigation. as the government did here. Goodman will receive $28,548,749 as his share of the recovery.
According to the Tennessean, Martin called the win a “true David versus Goliath story,” and said he was proud to still be able to work with the government of “Team America” from time to time.
Kathleen M. Sullivan will give the United States Supreme Court Update at the San Diego NAFUSA Conference in April. Sheis partner and founding chair of the national appellate practice at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP. She has argued over 200 appeals including eleven in the U.S. Supreme Court. Before joining the firm, Kathleen was a professor of law at Harvard and Stanford Law Schools and served as the eleventh Dean of Stanford Law School. She holds a J.D. from Harvard, a B.A. from Cornell and an M.A. from Oxford (which she attended as a Marshall Scholar), and was a law clerk to Judge James L. Oakes on the Second Circuit.
Registration for the 2022 National Association of Former United States Attorneys (NAFUSA) Annual Conference is open.
Our Annual Conference will be held at The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego California, April 6-8, 2022.
The conference will open on Wednesday, April 6th, with a welcome reception from 6-9 pm at the hotel sponsored by Guidepost Solutions. Lifetime NAFUSA member Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, will make opening comments. Golf will be available at 8am on Wednesday morning at the Torrey Pines North Golf Course. Bus will leave the hotel at 6:30 am.
Thursday and Friday sessions will include a panel discussion on “Leadership and the Legacy of Women at DOJ” with Loretta Lynch, Jamie Gorelick and Sally Yates, moderated by Karen Hewitt; a presentation of the Bradford Award to the top AUSA of the year; a Supreme Court Update by Kathleen Sullivan; a panel on “Crypto: the Good, the Bad, the Ugly” with Steve Bunnell, Sean Joyce, Jai Massari, and Eun Young Choi, moderated by Ken Wainstein; an update on EOUSA with Monty Wilkinson; and an ethics presentation by Chuck Rosenberg entitled “The Korematsu Story: The Duty of Candor to the Court.” On each day of the meetings, luncheons will be held for all participants. The Thursday lunch will honor retiring NAFUSA Executive Director Rich Rossman.
Thursday evening is reserved for class reunions at various off-site locations, organized by a representative of each class. The closing dinner and general membership meeting will be held on Friday with a presentation from our keynote speaker, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco.
NAFUSA Board Member Chuck Rosenberg will give the ethics presentation at the San Diego NAFUSA Conference in April. It will be entitled “The Korematsu Story: The Duty of Candor to the Court.”
Chuck has held numerous senior positions in the United States Department of Justice – as the United States Attorney in both the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Texas, as the senior counselor for national security to one Director of the FBI, and as the Chief of Staff to another FBI Director, as counselor to the Attorney General of the United States, as the Chief of Staff to the Deputy Attorney General of the United States, and as the Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration – a position from which he resigned in 2017.
Chuck joined the Department of Justice directly out of law school, through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, and quickly found the job he enjoyed most – as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, in Norfolk and Alexandria. There, he tried dozens of criminal cases before juries and briefed and argued many of those cases to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Chuck prosecuted complex financial fraud crimes, public corruption, violent crimes, and national security cases.
Chuck currently works as a legal analyst for MSNBC and NBC, as a senior counsel for a Washington, D.C. law firm, and as an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, where he teaches National Security Law and Policy.He is a graduate of Tufts University (BA), Harvard University (MPP), and the University of Virginia (JD).Chuck also hosted the acclaimed podcast, The Oath, which finished a four-season run with more than ten million downloads (available at msnbc.com/theoath).
Gilbert Stroud Merritt, Jr., the longest-serving member of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals died on Monday, January 17. He was 86.
“Judge Merritt was a cherished friend of my entire family,” former Vice President Al Gore told The Tennessean. “A deeply intelligent and deliberative legal thinker, he was an ardent defender of the liberties that form the foundation of our Constitution…I am holding his family in my thoughts and prayers.”
He sat of the bench for 44 years. He earlier served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee from 1966-1969 under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and a bachelor of law from Vanderbilt University Law School. He is survived by three children and three grandchildren.
On June, 26, 2019, NAFUSA former president Hal Hardin interviewed Judge Merritt as part of the oral history project of the Nashville Bar Association.
As is our custom, NAFUSA has requested that an American flag be flown over Main Justice and it will be presented Judge Merritt’s family.
NAFUSA life time member Chris Wray was the keynote speaker at the last NAFUSA conference, held in San Francisco in 2019. The Covid-19 pandemic has prevented holding conferences in 2020 and 2021. Our next conference is scheduled for April 6-8, 2022, at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. Director Wray will return and open the conference with remarks at the Welcome Reception on the evening of April 6, 2022.
Christopher Wray became the eighth Director of the FBI on August 2, 2017.
Mr. Wray was born in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1989 and earned his law degree from Yale Law School in 1992. He then clerked for Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. In 1993, he began working in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia.
Mr. Wray began his Department of Justice career in 1997 as an assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, where he prosecuted cases ranging from public corruption to gun trafficking and financial fraud. In 2001, he joined the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, where he served as associate deputy attorney general and then principal associate deputy attorney general, with oversight responsibilities spanning the full Department.
In 2003, Mr. Wray was nominated by President George W. Bush to serve as assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division. In addition to overseeing criminal matters, Mr. Wray played a key role in the evolving national security mission of the Department as it responded to the attacks on 9/11. He also served on the President’s Corporate Fraud Task Force and supervised the Enron Task Force and other major national and international fraud investigations. At the conclusion of his tenure, Mr. Wray was awarded the Edmund J. Randolph Award, the Department of Justice’s highest award for leadership and public service.
After leaving the Department of Justice in 2005, Mr. Wray returned to private practice at the law firm King & Spalding, where he chaired the Special Matters and Government Investigations Practice Group.
The Welcome Reception will be sponsored by our friends at Guidepost Solutions. Golf will be available on Wednesday morning, and CLE meeting will take place on Thursday and Friday mornings. The Planning Committee is putting together a very exciting program, details of which will appear on our website and in the monthly newsletter. The conference will conclude on Friday, April 8, with a dinner and a keynote speaker to be announced.
Registration will begin mid-January. Members will receive email invitations. The registration form will include an option for booking a room at the Del Coronado. It is suggested that you register early in order to assure a room.
NAFUSA member Joe Whitley joins his partner, Luke Cass, to discuss enforcement trends in corporate crime on the Womble Bond Dickinson “In-house Roundhouse” podcast. They discuss how white-collar enforcement priorities change when there is a new administration and how in 2021 the Biden Administration is implementing its own set of compliance priorities and enforcement emphasis.
Whitley and Cass find three takeaways from the discussion:
In recent remarks, top DOJ officials stated that DOJ will “surge resources” and “redouble efforts” for corporate enforcement.
Areas of particular concern include Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, government contracting fraud, financial fraud, tax issues, and energy pricing benchmark manipulation.
Strong compliance programs must be top-down, with C-Suite executives enforcing the importance of compliance. Should problems occur, the first call should always be to legal counsel.
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