Richard Perry/The New York Times

The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York celebrated its 225th birthday last month at the Plaza Hotel in New York. More than 700 current and former AUSAs attended, along with several former United States Attorneys. Pictured above standing from left: Otto G. Obermaier, Preet Bharara, Michael J. Garcia, James B. Comey, Robert M. Morgenthau and John S. Martin, Jr. Seated from left: Thomas J. Cahill, Robert B. Fiske, Jr., Mary Jo White and David N. Kelley.

Morgenthau, Fiske, White and Kelley are members of NAFUSA.

At the close of the Boston conference, the NAFUSA membership elected Matt Orwig to serve as its president for 2014-2015. Orwig is currently the Head of Litigation for Jones Day’s Dallas office and a Partner in Jones Day’s Business and Tort Litigation practice. Jones Day is a global law firm with roughly 2,400 lawyers across 41 offices. Prior to joining Jones Day, Orwig served as the Managing Partner of SNR Denton’s Dallas office.

Before going into private practice, Orwig served in the U.S. Department of Justice for 20 years. He was appointed by George W. Bush as the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas and served in that role from 2001-2007. Prior to his tenure as U.S. Attorney, Orwig was an Assistant United States Attorney in both the Northern and Eastern Districts of Texas.

Orwig focuses his practice on white-collar criminal litigation and investigations, SEC investigations (including insider trading and accounting fraud allegations), health care fraud and abuse, qui tam litigation, internal corporate investigations, complex civil litigation, litigation involving government agencies, and privacy and data security. Overall, he has more than 25 years of experience litigating complex civil and criminal cases, including high-profile money laundering, public corruption, securities fraud, insider trading, health care fraud, and civil and civil and criminal fraud cases.

Orwig has been selected to Best Lawyers in America, Texas Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in Dallas, and Best Business Lawyers, and was recognized as the Alumnus of the Year in 2007 by the Texas Tech University School of Law. He also serves as a Life Fellow of the Dallas Bar Foundation

Orwig graduated from Texas Tech University and received his law degree from Texas Tech University School of law. Following his graduation, he clerked for the Honorable Chief Judge Halbert O. Woodward of the U.S. District Court of the Northern District of Texas.

NAFUSA board member Ken Wainstein was retained by the University of North Carolina to investigate allegations of that fake classes had been established to bolster the grades of football players. On Wednesday, October 23, Wainstein’s report was released by the university, which “found that between 1993 and 2011, two employees in the university’s African and Afro-American studies department presided over what was essentially a ‘shadow curriculum’ designed to help struggling students — many of them Tar Heels athletes — stay afloat”. As the Wainstein report puts it:

These were classes that involved no interaction with a faculty member, required no class attendance or course work other than a single paper, and resulted in consistently high grades that Crowder awarded without reading the papers or otherwise evaluating their true quality.

See U.N.C. Says Athletes Took Fake Classes for The New York Times full article. Also see The Price of Academic Eligibility at U.N.C.- The New Yorker.

Wainstein, a partner in the Washington office of Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, served 19 years at the Justice Department, including serving as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia.

NAFUSA member Robert B. Fiske, Jr. has published his memoirs: Prosecutor Defender Counselor. Fiske served as United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1976-1980) after earlier serving as an assistant in the office from 1957-1961. Fiske served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (1976-1980; Chairman 1978). He also served as the first “special prosecutor” in the Whitewater controversy and the investigation into the death of White House Counsel Vincent Foster.

Fiske is a senior law partner at Davis Polk, where he was a partner for more than 40 years. He has represented many high-profile clients during his career, including the defense of the National Football League in an antitrust suit; representation of Clark Clifford and Robert A. Altman in the BCCI scandal; the defense of Exxon in the investigations of the oil spill into Arthur Kill in New Jersey; representation of A. Alfred Tubman in the price-fixing investigation of Sotheby’s;  representation of Sanjay Kumar of Computer Associates International, Inc.; and the defense of Babcock and Wilcox in the Three Island case.

Fiske is a past president of the American College of Trial Lawyers and the Federal Bar Council. He received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School.

His memoirs has just been published by Smith/Kerr and is available on Amazon in hardcover for $18.82.

“Bob Fiske is a role model for anyone engaged in public service or in the private practice of law. I have long admired, and sought to emulate, his rare combination of legal skill, personal integrity and good judgment. His life story is an inspiration to all Americans, not just those directly involved in the private or public practice of law.”

-SENATOR GEORGE J. MITCHELL

Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, a NAFUSA member, and DHS general counsel Stevan Bunnell have been named by DHS head Jeh Johnson to take over the investigation of the White House intruder investigation from the Secret Service. Their report is due November 1.

On September 19 a man scaled the White House fence and was able to penetrate far into the interior of the White House before he was apprehended. This incident, along with other recent security breaches led to the resignation of the head of the Secret Service on September 29.

Mayorkas served as the United States Attorney for the CD of California (1999-2001) and is currently the deputy secretary of DHS, the second-ranking official of that agency. He previously served as the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) from 2009-2013. He was a participant on the NAFUSA panel on immigration at the Atlanta conference in 2012. Mayorkas and Bunnell were both partners in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP prior to their service at DHS.

The Mayor’s Commission on The Department of Licenses and Inspection (L&I) issued its final report on September 25, 2014. NAFUSA member Peter F. Vaira, was appointed by Mayor Nutter as the executive director of the Commission. The Commission, consisting of 20 experts in construction and demolition, and the government supervision of these activities was directed to look into the L&I’s oversight of a building collapse in June 2013 which killed six persons in a Salvation Army thrift store next door. One of those killed was the daughter of the Treasurer of Philadelphia.

After 10 months of active investigation, the Commission recommended some of the most dramatic changes in Philadelphia government in 50 years. The Commission  recommended that the Department of L&I, be abolished and replaced by a Department of Buildings and and a Department of Business Compliance. The Department of Buildings is to be headed by a licensed engineer or a registered architect, will have public safety in construction and demolition of private and public buildings as its primary mission and will have direct supervision of 25,000 vacant buildings in Philadelphia. The Department of Business Compliance will have the responsibility of licensing and permitting all activities that do not fall under construction or demolition.
Upon receiving the report, the Mayor immediately placed L&I under the supervision of the
Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, along with the Police and Fire Departments. The Mayor also directed the formation of an implementation group to begin studying how the recommended changes could be made. That group will convene in October and will report to the Mayor by December 31, 2014.

For a copy of the report contact p.vaira@gpeff.com