NAFUSA member Robert G. McCampbell, was selected as Best Lawyers Lawyer of the Year in the practice area of White Collar Criminal Defense in Oklahoma City. McCampbell has previously been selected “Lawyer of the Year” for Government Relations and for Administrative/Regulatory law. Lawyer of the Year is an honor given to only one lawyer in a metropolitan area in a practice area. Best Lawyers is a peer based review where attorneys assess and provide feedback on their colleagues.
McCampbell is a partner in the Oklahoma City office of Fellers Snider. He served as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma from 2001 to 2005.
The George H. Lowe Center for Justice will be dedicated at a ceremony at the offices of Legal Services of Central New York (LSCNY), Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York (LASMNY), and Volunteer Lawyers Project of Onondaga County (OnVLP) at their new offices at 221 South Warren Street on October 29. “For many years, Judge Lowe has been a moving inspiration and supporter of our missions to provide free civil legal services to low-income people,” said Dennis Kaufman, Executive Director of LSCNY. “It is most fitting that our new office have Judge Lowe’s name attached to it in recognition of his `one roof’ dream for organizations devoted to providing the services our three organizations contribute,” added Dan Altwarg, Senior Managing Attorney at LASMNY.
Judge Lowe’s involvement in providing free legal services for low-income people extends throughout the state. He is a former co-chair of the New York State Bar Association Committee on Access to Justice and member of the Chief Judge’s Task Force to Expand Access to Civil Legal Services, and is a founding member of the new permanent Commission on Access to Justice. He is the Past President of the Onondaga County Bar Association and recipient of its 2007 Distinguished Lawyer Award. in 2003, he was a recipient of the American Bar Association’s Senior Lawyers Division Pro Bono Award, and in 2002 was the recipient of the State Bar Association’s Pro Bono Service Award. Judge Lowe is a former Chair, Fifth Judicial District, Committee on Character and Fitness. He has served on the boards of Legal Services of Central New York and the Onondaga County Bar Foundation. He currently serves on the boards of OnVLP and the Central New York Women’s Bar Association.
“We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Judge Lowe for his many years of service to our organization and are thrilled to have our name associated with his,” said Sally Fisher Curran, Executive Director of OnVLP.
“This is indeed a tremendous honor for me,” said Lowe. “Expanding free legal services for the indigent has always been one of my top priorities, and these three organizations operating in collaboration goes a long way in meeting that goal. i look forward to continuing my efforts toward the success of their work.”
Judge Lowe retired in 2004 as a United States Magistrate Judge for the ND of New York and rejoined Bond, Schoeneck & King as of counsel in its Syracuse office. He served as the United States Attorney for the ND of New York 1978-1982.
On July 29, 2015, U.S. Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and U.S. Congressman Dave Reichert announced that they have formed a new judicial selection committee to select potential candidates for the seats on the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington.
The committee is comprised of three Democrats and three Republicans from Western Washington, who will be charged with advertising for the open position and screening potential candidates. The committee will then present three candidates to Murray and Cantwell, who will interview them and, if they are acceptable, recommend them to President Obama. The President will make the final decision regarding selection of nominees and formal nomination. The senators from Washington state will only support candidates who have been selected by this bipartisan committee.
Mike McKay
NAFUSA Foundation President Mike McKay and Jenny Durkan, one of NAFUSA’s newest members, have been named co-chairs of the committee. McKay served as the U.S. Attorney for the WD of Washington, 1989-1993, and is also a past president of NAFUSA. Durkan served as U.S. Attorney in the WD of Washington, 2009-2014.
Past NAFUSA president James S. Brady has been selected to receive the highest honor Western Michigan University can confer on its alumni–the Distinguished Alumni Award. Brady, office managing member of Dykema Grand Rapids is one of two 2015 award recipients. Established in 1963, the Distinguished Alumni Awards program honors and celebrates alumni who bring distinction to their alma mater through professional accomplishments and who have achieved a high level of success in their careers.
Brady earned a Bachelor of Science in political science from WMU in 1966. He joined Dykema Grand Rapids as office managing member in 2010 to lead the expansion of the firm’s regional presence and bolster its white collar defense practice. Dykema is a leading national law firm with 12 offices that focuses on handling a wide variety of business issues for Fortune 1,000 companies and institutions. After graduating from WMU, Brady immediately continued his education at Notre Dame, earning a Juris Doctor in 1969. Early in his legal career, he was appointed U.S. attorney for the Western Judicial District of Michigan by President Jimmy Carter.
He joined the Miller Johnson law firm in 1981 and was chair of its Criminal Law Group before accepting his current position at Dykema Grand Rapids. Then-governor James Blanchard appointed him to the WMU Board of Trustees in 1987, and Brady served with distinction through one of the University’s greatest periods of growth. He previously also served as a member of the WMU Foundation Board of Directors, holding such positions as the board’s chair as well as chair of its Committee on Directors. Listed in “Who’s Who in America,” Brady has received numerous accolades. He was honored by Michigan Lawyers Weekly when the publication included him in its 2009 class of Leaders in the Law. Additionally, he was recognized by Michigan Super Lawyers in the areas of criminal defense and civil litigation defense from 2006 through 2014 and has been recognized in “The Best Lawyers in America” editions in multiple practice areas from 2003 to 2015.
NAFUSA member John Tinder has announced his retirement from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, effective in August. See “Tinder departs 7th Circuit” in The Indiana Lawyer, July 29, 2015. Judge Tinder served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, 1984-1987, and as a federal judge for 20 years on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana before moving to the 7th Circuit eight years ago. He will leave the bench upon completion of his final opinions which are being circulated among panel judges. He is only 65 but hasn’t yet decided what is next in his impressive career. In the meantime he has registered to attend the Scottsdale conference in October.
NAFUSA Board Member Bob Miller, shown right, prosecuted a case in the 70s which involved serial murders (18 in all) committed across the United States by a nomadic family. Miller authored a book about the case (“Death Roads”- still available online). On August 4, 2015, Investigation Discovery will air a film about Miller’s case, entitled “Highway to Hell”. The family lived in a car traveling across the country robbing, kidnapping, raping and killing young women who worked in convenience stores.
In an article published yesterday in Law 360, NAFUSA member Troy Eid, shown left, discusses issues surrounding the recent federal criminal raids of marijuana production on the Alturas Indian Rancheria and the Pit River XL Ranch Reservation in Northeastern California which seized at least 12,000 marijuana plants and 100 pounds of processed marijuana.
Eid writes:
A high-profile criminal investigation of two marijuana cultivation facilities on Native American lands in California is a reminder that despite recent U.S. Department of Justice assurances of possible prosecutorial forbearance, tribes considering violating the federal drug laws-even for the sake of much-needed economic development-may do so at their peril.
Troy Eid is the former U.S. Attorney for the District of Colorado and is a shareholder in Greenberg Traurig’s Denver office and co-chairman of he firm’s American Indian law practice group. He previously chaired the Indian Law and Order Commission and currently serves on the Tribal Issues Advisory Committee of the United States Sentencing Commission.
A bipartisan group of 16 NAFUSA members led by Tim Heaphy, shown left, have signed a letter directed to Senators Grassley and Leahy of the Senate Judiciary Committee, urging strong support for the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015.
The letter, dated July 16, 2015, begins:
As former United States Attorneys and officials of the United States Department of Justice in both Democratic and Republican administrations, we share a lifelong commitment to enhancing the effectiveness of the American criminal justice system. That shared commitment leads us to speak out in favor of specific proposals to improve the system within which we have worked for so long. Today we write in strong support the Smarter Sentencing Act of 2015, which would if passed make the federal criminal justice system both more just and more effective.
Margolis is the senior-most career employee in the department and one whose tenure out-clocks that of J. Edgar Hoover, the legendary FBI director. A tall, shambling bear of a man, Margolis has been the consigliere to a succession of deputy attorneys general, with a Forrest Gump-like knack to be involved with a number of the most politically controversial issues of the department’s past 25 years.
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