I would like to wish each of you a happy New Year and extend a special welcome to our new members.  We are looking forward to an exciting year for NAFUSA, and hope that your engagement with NAFUSA this year will strengthen the ties that bind us together.  I encourage you to stay involved and to contribute to the common purpose and vitality of our organization.  Most importantly, I hope you will share the warm camaraderie of our membership and the rich personal and professional relationships that give us common cause.  We have just concluded a very successful year and a terrific annual conference in Atlanta.  I would like to thank Rick Deane again for his outstanding leadership this past year. I would also like to express my sincere appreciation to Rich Rossman for his remarkable commitment and service as our Executive Director.  Rich really keeps our organization humming.  And I am grateful for our engaged and committed Board that provides thoughtful and meaningful guidance on NAFUSA’s policies and programs.  It is an honor and privilege for me to have the opportunity to serve as your president in the year ahead.

We have a full year planned for 2013.  As the year progresses, I hope you will reflect on your interest in being a more active participant in NAFUSA and consider possible service on a committee next year.   We also have some new members on our Board that is very engaged and active and is a key driver of our programs and policies.  Service on the Board has been a wonderful opportunity to share in the common experiences and rich heritage that we have as former United States Attorneys and to appreciate the special culture of NAFUSA rooted in our respect for the pursuit of justice and the role of the United States Attorney in our justice system.

We have scheduled a Board meeting in May to review the progress and plans of the organization, and importantly to advance the planning of our annual conference, which will be in Washington, DC, at the end of September.  We hope you will be able to join us for the September meeting which promises to be a wonderful opportunity to advance your professional learning and to renew and enrich your personal and professional relationships.  In part, we hope at that time to be able to share in understanding some of the issues and changes that lie ahead in the Justice Department community in what should be a dynamic year of a new Administration.

So we begin the year on a sound financial footing as an organization with a vibrant membership and a committed leadership.  We will exercise our stewardship to maintain the financial health of the organization while seeking to expand our membership, provide a rich and rewarding professional program, and deepen the important personal and professional relationships that are the foundation of our common purpose.  We encourage you to share in our events and the lives and professional activities of our members through our newsletter and website. I note, that in this era of partisan gridlock, it is reassuring that NAFUSA continues to flourish as a non-partisan organization comprised of both R’s and D’s who share a common commitment to support the independence of the U.S. Attorney and the pursuit of justice in our nation.  I look forward to serving as your president in the year ahead and to engaging you in developing rich personal and professional relationships with your colleagues and rewarding professional experiences and opportunities through NAFUSA.

Jay B. Stephens

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER FOR 2013 DUES

2013 membership dues were payable February 28, 2013. If you have not paid your 2013 dues, they are past due. You may register for payment on line and, if you choose, pay by credit card. Lifetime members do not need to register.

Not sure whether you are a lifetime member? Click here to see the 48 NAFUSA members who have chosen to become lifetime members. Please consider joining them at a one time payment of $1500.

Annual dues remain at $150 and senior dues (retired and over 70 years) at $50.

Two of Milwaukee’s former United States Attorneys have formed a new law practice. Steven Biskupic (shown above) and Michelle Jacobs (shown below), both former long-time federal prosecutors and more recently partners at one of Wisconsin’s top private firms, have opened Biskupic & Jacobs, S.C.

The new firm will concentrate on complex business disputes, government investigations, appellate work, and white collar criminal defense.

Combined, Biskupic and Jacobs have more than 40 years of legal experience. Both served as Assistant United States Attorneys for more than 10 years each. Biskupic then served as the United States Attorney from 2002 to 2009, and Jacobs succeeded him, serving from 2009-10.

Both have a wealth of experience on some of Wisconsin’s most high profile cases. Biskupic was the lead prosecutor on more than two dozen public corruption cases, securing convictions of four Milwaukee aldermen, the Kenosha County executive, and seven Milwaukee police officers involved in the beating of Frank Jude. More recently, while in private practice, Biskupic was involved in recall and removal-related matters involving high level public officials.  In one matter, he served as special prosecutor for the Sheboygan Common Council’s proceedings to remove its Mayor.

Jacobs has successfully argued more than 75 appellate cases, both civil and criminal, including the case against former Milwaukee alderman Michael McGee Jr. Jacobs has also tried a large number of civil and criminal cases, including regulatory, white collar, and business related matters.

Biskupic is a Marquette University Law School graduate. Jacobs is a University of Wisconsin Law School graduate.

In a December 27, 2012 article in The Wall Street Journal, Heather Haddon writes Ex-Prosecutors Use Links To Forge a Path to Politics (sub req.) and notes that when NAFUSA member Susan Brooks is sworn in as a member of Congress on January 3, 2013,

she will join a sizable group of Republican politicians that has emerged from a tightknit cadre of former U.S. attorneys appointed by President George W. Bush. Of the 145 U.S. attorneys that Mr. Bush installed, 21 have moved on to elected office or political appointments.

Haddon calls NAFUSA member Chris Christie “the standard bearer for the group”, and lists additional former Bush U.S. Attorneys in politics: Gov. Matt Mead of Wyoming, Rep. Thomas Marino of central Pennsylvania, George Holding, who won a House seat in North Carolina and Drew Wrigley, lieutenant governor of North Carolina.

“They have really bonded,” NAFUSA Executive Director Rich Rossman is quoted as saying of the Bush II U.S. Attorneys.

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it would accept two cases challenging state and federal laws that define marriage to include only unions of a man and a woman.

One of the cases, from California, was filed in 2009 by NAFUSA member Theodore B. Olson, shown right, former solicitor general of the United States, and David Boies. After a lengthy trial, a federal district judge ruled in favor of the plaintifffs, holding that the Constitution required the state of California to allow same-sex couples to marry, despite an effort by California voters to override a decision by the state’s Supreme Court. A divided panel of the Ninth Circuit affirmed the decision.

The second case involves an appeal from the Second Circuit which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act which defines marriage as between only a man and a woman for the purposes of federal laws and programs. In February 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Department would no longer defend the statute in court. House Republicans intervened and retained Paul D. Clement, another former solicitor general to defend the law

As Adam Liptak, who spoke at NAFUSA’s New York conference in 2010, writes in this morning’s New York Times:

The court’s docket is now crowded with cases about the meaning of equality, with the new cases joining ones on affirmative action in higher education and on the future of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Decisions in all of the cases are expected by June.

NAFUSA member Bob Barr has teamed up with Mary McCarthy, a former high-ranking intelligence official, in an Op-Ed piece published by The Christian Science Monitor entitled How to protect Americans from anti-terrorism data sharing.

Barr and McCarthy describe fusion centers as “state and regionally based information-sharing hubs designed to pool the knowledge and expertise of state, local, and federal law enforcement, intelligence agencies, military officials, and private sector entities.” But they opine that the centers are not being run properly and pose “very real risks” to civil liberties. They propose remedies to fix the perceived problems.

The editorial relies heavily on the Recommendations for Fusion Centers: Preserving Privacy & Civil Liberties While Protecting Against Crime & Terrorism report released by The Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee. Barr and McCarthy are members of the committee, as are NAFUSA members Asa Hutchinson and William Sessions.

Barr served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia 1986-1990, and as a member of Congress (R-Ga.).

Despite some criticism from within his party for his bear hugs for President Obama during Hurricane Sandy, NAFUSA member Chris Christie is receiving some recognition as a possible front runner for the GOP nomination for the White House in 2016. New Yorker writer John Cassidy, for instance, writes in his blog Can A Certain (Very Popular) Fat Guy From Jersey Win The White House?:

Then there is Hurricane Sandy, a tragic accident of geography and nature with which Christie will forever be associated. A month on, he is basking in record approval ratings: sixty-seven per cent, according to  one new poll; seventy-two per cent according to another; seventy-seven per cent,  according to a third. “Christie never looked more like ‘Jersey Guy’ than when he  stood on the seaside boardwalk after Sandy, and, just about unanimously, his New  Jersey neighbors—Republicans, Democrats, Independents—applauded,” said Maurice  Carroll, the director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The  Governor gets high marks from the cities, the shore, from every corner of the  state.” And not just in Jersey. More than his flirtation with a Presidential run  earlier this year, more than his speech at the Republican Convention in Tampa,  Christie’s vigorous response to the storm—and his vigorous embrace of President Obama—turned him into a national figure. In a situation crying out for  leadership, here was somebody who seemed willing to set aside partisan politics  and seek help anywhere he could find it, even if that meant putting his arms around a Democratic President who was due to face the voters a week later.

In the meantime, Christie has a relection campaign to face in New Jersey.

NAFUSA member Susan W. Brooks, former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Indiana, was elected on Tuesday to serve as Indiana’s 5th District Congresswoman. Brooks, who attended the Atlanta NAFUSA conference and was supported by many of her former colleagues, said on her website,

“I am so proud to represent the 5th     Congressional District. I’m ready to get to work. Thank you everyone!”

NAFUSA member Peter Vaira, former United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and former attorney in charge of the Chicago Strike Force on Organized Crime, has published an article in the summer/fall issue of the ABA White Collar Crime Committee Newsletter entitled “Brady at Sentencing in Federal Court, a Neglected Practice”.

As Vaira points out, “The obligation of the prosecutor to search for and turn over Brady material extends to the sentencing process.”

Vaira currently is a partner at Vaira & Riley in Philadelphia.