NAFUSA members from the Reagan and Bush I administrations attending this year’s NAFUSA conference in Washington will gather on Friday evening, September 27, for a reunion dinner at the United States Supreme Court. This very special event was put together by Past President Bill Lutz, who made the arrangements through the office of Justice Alito, shown right, who has promised to try to attend at least a portion of the dinner. Justice Alito is a member of this reunion class, having served as the Reagan appointed United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey 1987-1990
Lutz has sent out an invitation to members of the Reagan-Bush I class. If you are a member and did not receive an invitation, contact Lutz at 575-526-2448 or wlutz@questoffice.net. The Friday night reunion dinners have become a NAFUSA tradition and it is expected that other classes will also be announcing plans soon.
Pete Williams has joined Ted Olson on the NAFUSA panel on the Supreme Court to be held on Saturday morning, September 27, 2013. Williams is an NBC News correspondent based in Washington. He has been covering the Justice Department and the U.S. Supreme Court since March 1993.
Prior to joining NBC, Williams served as a press official on Capitol Hill for many years. In 1986 he joined the Washington staff of then Congressman Dick Cheney as press secretary and a legislative assistant. In 1989, when Cheney was named assistant secretary of defense, Williams was appointed assistant secretary of defense for public affairs. While in that position, Williams was named Government Communicator of the Year in 1991 by the National Association of Government Communicators.
A native of Casper, Wyoming and a graduate of Stanford University, Williams was a reporter and news director at KTWO-TV and Radio in Casper from 1974 to 1985. Working with the Radio-Television News Directors Association, for which he served as a member of its board of directors, he successfully lobbied the Wyoming Supreme Court to permit broadcast coverage of its proceedings and twice sued Wyoming judges over pre-trial exclusion of reporters from the courtroom. For these efforts, he received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, shown left, is reportedly resigning to become the president of the University of California university system.
Napolitano has led DHS from the beginning of the Obama administration. She has also served as the United States Attorney for the District of Arizona and the governor of the state. She was the keynote speaker at NAFUSA’s Santa Fe conference in 2011.
NAFUSA member and former board member Joseph P. Russoniello has joined the newly opened San Francisco office of Los Angeles litigation boutique firm Browne George Ross LLP. The firm is a 10-lawyer firm that litigates high-stakes cases.
Russoniello served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of California 1982-1990, and again in 2008-2010. Since leaving the U.S. Attorney’s position, he has been doing mostly consulting work. Russoniello also served as Dean of the San Francisco Law School for five and a half years. He received a J.D. degree from New York University Law School. He has served as special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and later served as an assistant district attorney for the City and County of San Francisco.
The new San Francisco office of Browne George Ross will have an emphasis on white-collar crime and complex corporate litigation.
NAFUSA member Dick Thornburgh was honored on June 27, 2013, as a recipient of The Legal Intelligencer’s Lifetime Achievement Award. The Legal Intelligencer is the oldest law journal in the United States and the award is aimed to select noteworthy individuals who have helped shape the law in Pennsylvania. Thornburgh served as governor of Pennsylvania, attorney general of the United States and under-secretary-general of the United Nations.
On June 12, 2013, the NAFUSA Liaison Committee met with the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC) in Washington. Jay Stephens chaired the committee and was NAFUSA’s principal spokesman. The other committee members were Don Stern (substituting for Rick Deane who was unable to attend), Matt Orwig, Doug Jones, Ken Wainstein and Rich Rossman.
The AGAC, is chaired by Lorreta Lynch (a former NAFUSA member from her first term as US Attorney in the Clinton Administration) and Sally Yates is the Vice-Chair. Although other issues were touched upon briefly, most of the discussion centered upon sequestration. The AGAC explained that if the sequester continues into FY14, all AUSAs and staff members will suffer mandatory three week furloughs. The hiring freeze will continue until 2015, with an anticipated loss of 1200 positions. The Department will find it self with the same staffing as 1997, but with a significant increase in case loads.
The US Attorney offices will be forced to reassess priorities. Cases will be pushed to state and local authorities. Some areas will be immune such as national security, but there will be a large impact on violent crime prosecution, guns, etc. The safety of the public will be impacted. Such areas as Indian country will be particulary hard hit. They can’t push those cases to state and local and case loads have increased by 40%.
As offices lose positions by attrition, they will unable to replace. Reduced travel budgets will hurt investigations. The AGAC members have already seen the impact of sequestration on the Federal Defenders, the Bureau and other agencies.
President Obama announced this week that he is nominating NAFUSA member Alejandro Mayorkas to be deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Mayorkas is currently the director of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at DHS. He served on the panel on immigration at NAFUSA’s Atlanta conference in 2012. Mayorkas served as the United States Attorney for the Central District of California 1999-200. At the time of his appointment by President Clinton, Mayorkas became the youngest U.S. Attorney to serve the nation at that time.
Prior to becomming the director of USCIS, Mayorkas was a partner in the law firm of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. He served as a member of firm’s worldwide governing Policy Committee. In 2008, the National Law Journal recognized Mayorkas as one of the “50 Most Influnetial Minority Lawyers in America.” He is a graduate of Loyola Law School.
Marietta S. Robinson was confirmed yesterday by the United States Senate to serve on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Robinson was nominated by President Obama in January 2012.
Robinson has practiced as a trial attorney for 33 years, handling a wide variety of complex litigation for both plaintiffs and defendants. She is also a Fellow of the International Society of Barristers, a position she has held since 1994, and served as its first female president from 2010 to 2011. In 2011, Robinson served as independent legal counsel to the Chair of the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission in Liberia.
Previously, Robinson served for eight years as a federally-appointed trustee of the Dalkon Shield Trust, which disbursed over $2.4 billion to more than 300,000 claimants in over 120 countries. She is a Fellow in American Bar Foundation and Michigan Bar, and in 2000 was a candidate for the Michigan Supreme Court. In 2009, Robinson was an appointed member of the Judicial Advisory Committee for the Eastern District of Michigan and from 1985 to 1989 she served on the Michigan State Building Authority. She also served as a member of the Michigan State Bar Representative Assembly. Robinson earned her J.D. from the UCLA School of Law. She is the wife of the late James K. Robinson, a former president of NAFUSA and assistant attorney general in charge of the Criminal Division.
The NAFUSA DC Planning Committee, chaired by President Jay Stephens, has announced the early plans for this year’s NAFUSA conference to be held at the J.W. Marriott in Washington, DC, September 26-28, 2013.
On Saturday morning, September 28, NAFUSA member Ted Olson, shown left, will anchor a panel on the Supreme Court. Olson served as the solicitor general of the United States, 2001-2004. He also served as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel, 1981-1984. He is currently a partner in the Washington office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Earlier this year, Olson was named one of “The Most Influential Lawyers in America” by the National Law Journal.
In March, he argued the historic case of Hollingsworth v. Perry, challenging California Proposition 8, which overturned a State Supreme Court decision allowing same-sex marriage. Yesterday the United States Supreme Court held the the case was not properly before the court. California officials had declined to appeal the trial court’s decision and proponents of Proposition 8 were determined by the Supreme Court to lack standing to step into the state’s shoes. The ruling left in place the trial court victory for two same-sex couples who had sought to marry, and is considered a major victory for Olson and David Boies, co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs.
On Friday afternoon, following the morning CLE, the conference will hold a luncheon at the J.W. Marriott, and Charlie Savage, shown left, will once again join us, for the fourth year in a row. Savage will moderate a panel on drones. Savage is a Washington correspondent for The New York Times. Savage covered national legal affairs for the Boston Globe from 2003 to 2008. He received a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2007. His book about the growth of executive power, Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy, was named one of the best books of 2007 by both Slate and Esquire.
When the conference officially opens on Friday morning, Ronald C. Machen, Jr., shown right, the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, will welcome conference attendees to Washington. Machen was nominated by President Barack Obama on December 24, 2009 and confirmed by the United States Senate on February 11, 2010. He also serves as a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.
Before Machen’s appointment as U.S. Attorney, he was a partner at the law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr and practiced in the firm’s Investigations and Criminal Litigation group. Before practicing at WilmerHale, Mr. Machen served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia from 1997 to 2001.
Machen joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1997 after having served as a law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge for the Sixth Circuit. Mr. Machen graduated from Harvard Law School in 1994.
During his career, Machen has been repeatedly recognized for his professional accomplishments. In 2012, he received a “Visionary Award” from the Legal Times for helping to advance the practice of law during his time as U.S. Attorney. In 2008, the National Law Journal named him one of the “50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America.” In 2007, The American Lawyer identified him as one of the “50 Most Promising Litigators in America Under the Age of 45,” and in 2006, the Washingtonian magazine named him one of D.C.’s “Top 40 Lawyers Under 40.”
On Friday afternoon, NAFUSA members will be invited for a “Day at Justice” in the Great Hall at Main Justice, where we will meet with senior DOJ officials. The planning committee is also working on two additional panels; one of government enforcement hot topics and one of criminal litigation ethics. Details will be announced soon.
Conference social events will include a Thursday cocktail reception on the Jones Day rooftop overlooking the Capitol, Friday evening class reunion dinners, a Saturday Potomac River cruise, and a concluding Saturday evening banquet.
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