NAFUSA Past President Deborah J. Daniels has been elected as Krieg DeVault’s new Managing Partner. Daniels  begins her three-year term effective January 1, 2015. Krieg DeVault has grown from about 35 attorneys based in Indianapolis in 1991 to a firm of 150 professionals with offices in various parts of Indiana and four other states. With an emphasis on strategic growth and client satisfaction, Daniels’ focus will be to enhance the already-strong footprint of one of Indiana’s largest locally-owned law firms.

Her leadership skills have been honed in her past service, including at the U.S. Department of Justice, as United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana (1988-1993); as Director of the National Office for Weed and Seed; and as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs, where she managed multiple research and grant-making agencies and oversaw a $4.2 billion budget. As United States Attorney, she served on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. She has also served as Executive Director, and more recently Board Chair, of the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee; and as President of the Sagamore Institute. During her nearly 15 year tenure at Krieg DeVault, Daniels has been instrumental in representing the firm’s public and private-sector clients in relation to internal investigations, homeland security, disaster preparedness, strategic planning, and federal and state regulatory compliance.

“I welcome the challenge and privilege of leading our great law firm in the years ahead,” said Daniels. “Our firm has prided itself on staying true to its founding principles for more than 140 years. Our full commitment to our clients, our colleagues, and the communities we serve has been the foundation of our success in the past; and these principles will continue to lay the ground work for our future growth.”

“Deborah is an extraordinary lawyer, leader, manager, mentor and citizen.  She is a visionary thinker, who brings creativity, passion and focus to serving her clients, elevating her firm and advancing our state.  Deborah has long been one of the most talented and accomplished lawyers in our state.  She has used her talents broadly to make our community more just, safe, decent and compassionate.  Deborah’s election as managing partner is wonderful news for the firm’s clients, our legal community and our state,” said Matt Gutwein, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County.

“Deborah’s record of local and national service has made her an inspiration to me and countless others in Indiana,” said Robert S. Manuel, President of the University of Indianapolis. “I am certain that her history of creating strategic and thoughtful solutions to the issues that have faced our greater community will serve her well as she takes on this new role at Krieg DeVault. I am excited for Deborah, and I know that in this new position she will advance her firm’s practice and continue her unwavering commitment to developing new leaders for Indiana.”

In addition to Daniels’ numerous professional achievements, she has been an active business and civic leader, serving as a board member of various community organizations. She serves on the boards of directors of the United Way of Central Indiana, Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee (immediate past chair), Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County, and the Economic Club of Indiana (immediate past president); nationally, she is a board member of the National Center for State Courts. She is a Trustee of the University of Indianapolis, and chaired the search for its current president, Robert Manuel. Additional community boards on which she has previously served include Noble of Indiana; The Children’s Bureau of Indianapolis, Inc.; Mental Health America of Indiana and its Foundation; the Indianapolis Sports Corporation; and two pro bono legal services organizations.

 
Daniels continues to be involved in the criminal justice system and services to victims of crime. She helped found Coburn Place, an organization providing transitional housing for victims of domestic abuse and their children. In recent years, she played a key role in the review and revision of the Indiana Criminal Code. She is a signatory of the national Right on Crime initiative, seeking to improve the safety of communities through effective supervision of offenders while reducing the incarceration of low-level offenders. She serves as a member of the Board of Visitors of the Forensic and Investigative Sciences Program at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (IUPUI).

 
Daniels has been honored with the Antoinette Dakin Leach Award by the Indianapolis Bar Association; the Nancy Maloley Outstanding Public Servant Award by the Richard G. Lugar Excellence in Public Service Series; and the Touchstone Award by Girls, Inc. She has twice been named one of the “Influential Women in Indianapolis” by the Indianapolis Business Journal. She was recently inducted into The Indiana Academy in recognition of her achievements and contributions on behalf of the citizens of Indiana.
Daniels received a B.A., with honors, from DePauw University; and a J.D., cum laude, from the McKinney School of Law, Indiana University.

David B. Barlow stepped down as the U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah this summer, and rejoined Sidley Austin as a partner in Sidley’s Washington, D.C. office and will focus his practice on the service of the firm’s life sciences clients. Barlow is also NAFUSA’s newest member.

Barlow originally joined Sidley in 2000 and became a partner in 2006. During his time at Sidley, he handled a wide variety of cases, with particular emphasis on pharmaceutical, medical device, and mass tort matters.

Barlow was nominated by President Obama and unanimously confirmed by the Senate as U.S. Attorney for the District of Utah in September 2011. Prior to his service as U.S. Attorney, Barlow served as Senator Mike Lee’s Chief Counsel on the Judiciary Committee.

In March 2013, Attorney General Holder asked Barlow to serve on the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. Barlow also served on the Health Care Fraud Working Group, the White Collar Crime Subcommittee and chaired the Local Government Coordination Working Group.

“We are delighted to welcome David back to Sidley,” said Mark Hopson, managing partner of Sidley’s Washington, D.C. office and a member of the firm’s Management Committee. “The insight and experiences David has gained during his time in the Department of Justice will be immensely valuable to our clients.”

With more than 1,800 lawyers in 19 offices worldwide, Sidley has built a reputation as a premier legal adviser for global businesses and financial institutions. For the fourth consecutive year, and every year since the survey’s inception, Sidley received the most first-tier national rankings of any U.S. law firm in the 2014 U.S. News – Best Lawyers® “Best Law Firms” survey. On Law360’s list of Global 20 Firms, Sidley was ranked among the top law firms “with the greatest global reach and expertise.”

Greg Vega, Doug Jones, Don Stern

NAFUSA Secretary Doug Jones invited his colleagues Don Stern (NAFUSA Immediate Past President) and Greg Vega (NAFUSA President Elect) to last Saturday’s Alabama- Mississippi State football game in Tuscaloosa. Jones is well known for his loyalty to the the Tide and he was not disappointed as Alabama rolled, beating the number one Mississippi State team 25-20.

In last Tuesday’s election, NAFUSA member John Ratcliffe, shown right, won a seat in the 114th United States Congress representing the 4th District of Texas. Ratcliffe served as the United States Attorney for the ED of Texas 2007-2009. He had served as the first assistant to NAFUSA President Matt Orwig, and succeeded Orwig when the latter returned to private practice. Ratcliffe is currently a partner with the Ashcroft Law Firm in Dallas.

Ratcliffe will join Susan Brooks, who was reelected to Congress to represent the 5th District of Indiana, with a whopping 65.2% of the vote. Brooks, shown left, a regular at NAFUSA’s annual conferences, served as the U.S. Attorney for the SD of Indiana 2001-2007.

Another former U.S. Attorney, Asa Hutchinson, shown right, was elected governor of the State of Arkansas. He served the WD of Arkansas 1982-1985. He also served in the U.S. House of Representatives, and was the administrator of the DEA.

Former U.S. Attorney Tom Corbett did not fare so well in last Tuesday’s election. Corbett, who served as U.S Attorney for the WD of Pennsylvania 1989-1993, was defeated in his effort to be reelected governor of the State of Pennsylvania.

NAFUSA member Greg Brower has been appointed to the Board of Trustees of the International Association of Gaming Advisors (IAGA) at its annual meeting in Philadelphia.
IAGA is the world’s preeminent association of gaming advisors and includes senior executives, legal and financial advisors, regulators, consultants and academics. Members are involved in the evolution of regulated gaming in numerous jurisdictions worldwide, and contribute to the promulgation and progress of gaming law through publications,
conferences and teaching.

“I am honored to be joining some of the world’s best gaming lawyers on IAGA’s Board of Trustees,” said Brower. “I look forward to working with my esteemed colleagues around the globe as IAGA continues its leadership role within the international gaming community.”

Brower is a partner in Snell & Wilmer’s Reno and Las Vegas offices. His practice is focused on complex civil and white collar criminal litigation, as well as corporate investigations and administrative law, including gaming regulatory matters. His more than 20 years of practice includes significant experience as a “first chair” trial and appellate advocate, as well as service at the highest levels of state and federal government. In addition to being a partner at Snell & Wilmer, he serves in the Nevada Senate and as the Republicans won a majority of seats in the November election, Brower will become the new chairman of the Judiciary Committee. He has been named to The Best Lawyers in America®, 2014. He served as the United States Attorney for the District of Nevada 2007-2009.

A frequent author and lecturer on gaming issues, Brower recently served on the Nevada Legislature’s Interim Committee to Study the Impact of Technology upon the Regulation of Gaming. He is also an adjunct professor at UNLV’s William S. Boyd School of Law and is a member of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, the Washington Legal Foundation’s Legal Policy Advisory Board, the American Inns of Court.

Snell & Wilmer, founded in 1938, is a full-service business law firm with more than 400 attorneys practicing in nine locations throughout the western United States and in Mexico.,  The firm represents clients ranging from large, publicly traded corporations to small businesses, individuals and entrepreneurs. For more
information, visit www.swlaw.com.

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