NAFUSA member Donald J. DeGabrielle, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, has joined Bracewell & Giuliani in its Houston office as a partner in its white collar defense, internal investigations and regulatory enforcement practice. In addition to serving as the U.S. Attorney, DeGabrielle has served as a special agent with the FBI and an assistant U.S. attorney.

“The judgment one develops and exercises as U.S. Attorney is unparalleled. It gives Don the ability to advise clients with insight that very few lawyers possess,” added Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, the firm’s name partner and a lifetime member of NAFUSA.

During his time with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, DeGabrielle led the Criminal Division within the district and held an assignment with the Public Integrity Unit, where he focused on trials related to public corruption, white collar crime, environmental crimes and bank fraud, trying over 50 criminal jury trials. He also spent a year as the resident legal adviser to the South African National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, serving as a consultant and adviser for rule of law and criminal justice development.

Before his tenure in the Southern District of Texas, DeGabrielle was an assistant district attorney in New Orleans, where he conducted more than 150 jury trials. He is also a former FBI special agent in New York and New Orleans.

Bracewell & Giuliani LLP is an international law firm with 470 lawyers in Texas, New York, Washington, D.C., Connecticut, Seattle, Dubai and London, serving Fortune 500 companies, major financial institutions, leading private investment funds, governmental entities and individuals concentrated in the energy, technology and financial services sectors worldwide.

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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.

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.

NAFUSA member and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh spoke at a June 24, 2013, program on U.S. and International Anti-Corruption Law at American University Columbus College of Law. The title of Thornburgh’s address was The Global Effort to Contain Official Corruption. He reviews the efforts being made to deal with official corruption, both at the country level and at the level of multi-national organizations. He then discusses a “checklist of the ‘nuts and bolts’ required for executing an effective anti-corruption program, ” and concludes:

Any message of quality of life in any country or region must include consideration of its quality of governance. In the long run, corrupt rulers cannot provide their constituents with fulfillment of their hopes and aspirations at a price they are willing to tolerate. Sooner or later, citizens worldwide will demand higher standards and more accountability from those who govern them. And that will hold out the promise of true progress for all.

Thornburgh also served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (1969-1975), Governor of Pennsylvania (1979-1987) and Under-Secretary General of the United Nations (1992-1993). He currently practices with K&L Gates in Washington.

In this morning’s New York Times Op-Ed piece entitled Let Shooting Victims Sue, NAFUSA member Robert M. Morgenthau writes that gun manufacturers, distributors and dealers should be held responsible for reckless acts that send guns to the black market.

Morgenthau writes:

The Second Amendment right to bear arms is an important right. But the contours of that right must not extend to those who look away as their guns enter the hands of criminals and the mentally unstable. Congress should immediately repeal the 2005 gun immunity law, and let free-market incentives encourage responsible behavior by the gun industry.

Morgenthau, who was honored by NAFUSA in 2010 upon his retirement as the Manhattan district attorney from 1975 to 2009, served as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 1961-1970. In the photo above, Morgenthau is shown at the NAFUSA reception in New York in his honor, with (left to right) Ron Woods, Rich Rossman, New York DA Cyrus Vance, Jr., Robert Morgenthau, Rudy Giuliani and Otto Obermaier

On June 10, 2013, the Justice Department filed a petition asking the Merit Systems Protection Board to reverse the decision by Adminstrative Judge Benjamin Gutman in April that the Department had violated internal procedure in the disciplinary actions against AUSAs Joseph Bottini and James Goeke. The two assistants were accused of ethical violations in the corruption cases against the late Alaska Senator Ted Stevens.

The Office of Professional Responsibility had concluded that Goeke and Bottini committed professional misconduct in the Stevens case. The Justice Department overruled career DOJ attorney Terrence Berg who had determined the two had exercised poor judgment but not professional misconduct.

NAFUSA board member Kenneth Wainstein represents Bottini and said Berg “was dead right when he concluded that Joe had made honest mistakes that were not professional misconduct, and MSPB Judge Gutman was equally right to find a procedural violation when the Justice Department ignored that conclusion.”

John E. Clark, shown above with his family, one of the founding members of NAFUSA, was honored on Law Day 2013 by the San Antonio Bar Association with the Joe Frazier Brown Award of Excellence. The award is given annually and is named after a distinguished former judge, now deceased. The inscription on the plaque states “In recognition of outstanding leadership and service to members of the legal community and citizens of Texas.”

Clark, a life member and former president of NAFUSA, served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of Texas 1975-1977. He is currently a partner at Goode, Casseb, Jones, Choate & Watson, P.C. in San Antonio. He mentioned that Doug Jones, who is featured in another post this month, spoke at the San Antonio Bar Association Law Day luncheon a few years ago on his prosecution of the church bombing case. Clark urges others to invite Jones to their bar meetings to talk about his extraordinary efforts in that historic case.