March 4, 2021

Good morning. Progressive district attorneys in three states are being eyed for potential nominations as top federal prosecutors in the Biden administration. Gibson Dunn has elected its first female leader, Goldman Sachs' top lawyer is headed back to Sullivan & Cromwell, and beloved cinema chain Alamo Drafthouse has filed for Chapter 11 because of, you know, the pandemic. And those are just some of the headlines!

Our guest contributor today is Arriana McLymore. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.

Democrats eye progressive prosecutors for U.S. Attorney posts in three states

Sources: Suffolk County District Attorney's Office, DeKalb County District Attorney's Office and Durham County District Attorney's Office

Could the progressive prosecutor movement already at play in local district attorneys offices be coming to a U.S. Attorney's Office near you?

Maybe. Three Black female local prosecutors aligned with the movement and its goals of ending racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system have been approached by congressional Democrats or members of President Joe Biden's transition team about potentially becoming top federal prosecutors, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

They include Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins in Boston, DeKalb County District Attorney Sherry Boston in Decatur, Georgia, and Durham County District Attorney Satana Deberry in Durham, North Carolina, the sources said.

"It's definitely on reformers' minds that it would be good to get U.S. attorneys who are like the progressive prosecutors who have emerged in big cities across the country," said Jeffrey Bellin, a professor at William & Mary Law School.

Choosing any of the three would add diversity to the DOJ's top ranks under Biden's pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, who told a Senate panel last month he believes the criminal justice system does not treat Americans of all races equally.

Some are speaking publicly about potentially being nominated, including Deberry, who said becoming the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina "would be one of the great honors of my life." Learn more.

Industry buzz

Gibson Dunn has elected Barbara Becker as its first female chair and managing partner. She previously served as co-chair to the firm's M&A practice with more than 400 lawyers. Becker succeeds Ken Doran, who has led the firm since 2002, and will take the reins on May 1. (Reuters)
Goldman Sachs is losing its executive vice president and general counsel Karen Patton Seymour to her old firm Sullivan & Cromwell, where she previously spent 13 years. While at Goldman, Seymour played a key role in the bank's negotiations to pay $2.9 billion to resolve investigations by the DOJ and other regulators probing the role its bankers played Malaysia's 1MDB corruption scandal. (Reuters)
Associates at Davis Polk are getting a special "thank you" from the firm with Nordstrom shopping sprees, new entertainment sets, workout equipment, wine baskets and more. In September, Davis Polk announced huge COVID-19 appreciation bonuses of up to $40,000, and now it is turning to gift packages to keep smiles on associate faces. (Above the Law)
Simpson Thacher is bulking up its private funds offerings in London with two new partners. James Board joined from Kirkland & Ellis and Geoffrey Bailhache had been managing director and general counsel at private equity giant Blackstone Group. Jason Glover, managing partner of Simpson Thacher's London office said that Board’s joining "marks the latest step in the continued growth of our private funds platform in Europe." (Reuters)
Pro-Trump lawyer L. Lin Wood, who backed the former president's false election fraud claims, has been expelled from a social club for Atlanta lawyers and says Arizona's bar association is investigating him. Lawyers Club for Atlanta cited Wood's posting of "incendiary, seditious, and patently false messages on social media,” including calling for former Vice President Mike Pence to face "firing squads." (Forbes)

Number of the day:

$6.25 billion

REUTERS/David Becker

Skadden and Paul Weiss are staying busy with Las Vegas Sands Corp.'s $6.25 billion real estate sell-off to investment firm Apollo Global Management. The sale follows the death in January of Sands' billionaire founder, Sheldon Adelson. Advised by Skadden M&A partners Howard Ellin and Kenneth Wolff, Sands is set to sell The Venetian, one of Sin City's most iconic landmark hotels and resorts. Corporate partner Gregory Ezring is leading Paul Weiss in advising its long-time client Apollo. (Reuters)

Coming up today

General Motors will urge the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati to revive a racketeering lawsuit accusing smaller rival Fiat Chrysler Automobiles of bribing United Auto Workers union officials over many years to corrupt the collective bargaining process and gain advantages, costing GM billions of dollars. The arguments come days after FCA, now part of Stellantis NV, pleaded guilty to conspiring with company executives to make illegal, lavish gifts to UAW leaders. Paul Clement of Kirkland & Ellis will argue for GM and will face FCA counsel Steven Holley of Sullivan & Cromwell.
A New Orleans lawyer will urge the 5th Circuit to rule that Louisiana's requirement that lawyers join the state bar association violates their free speech rights because the dues they pay fund lobbying and other political activities. Randy Boudreaux, represented by the conservative Goldwater Institute, says a 1990 U.S. Supreme Court decision that said mandatory bar association membership was legal is no longer good law following the high court's 2018 ruling in Janus v. AFSCME. The high court in that case said public-sector unions cannot require nonmembers to pay fees to cover the costs of collective bargaining.
Immigrant and environmental groups including the Labor Council for Latin American Advancement and the Natural Resources Defense Council will urge the 2nd Circuit in New York to strike down an EPA rule they say allows workers to be exposed to a potentially fatal chemical solvent used in paint stripping products. Their lawyers including Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz of Earthjustice argue the EPA wrongly issued a partial ban that prohibited consumer, but not commercial, use of methylene chloride. An industry group, Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance, repped by Keith Bradley of Squire Patton Boggs, counters that the retail sales ban makes it impossible for small businesses to obtain methylene chloride paint strippers.
Investors in an exchange traded fund created by ProShares will urge the 2nd Circuit to revive their proposed class action alleging the company failed to disclose risks in the way that it managed the volatility-tied product. Steven Hubachek of Robbins Geller will argue for the investors, and will face Robert Skinner of Ropes & Gray for ProShares and Adam Hakki of Shearman & Sterling for its underwriters.
The D.C. Circuit will consider whether the National Labor Relations Board violated federal labor law by shutting down an on-site health clinic for agency lawyers without bargaining with their union. The health unit was closed in 2018 after the Trump administration proposed a $16 million budget cut for the agency, and the move was challenged by the NLRB Professional Association.

Reporter's notebook: Riding the data privacy merry-go-round

Reuters reporter Sara Merken looks at the booming job market for data privacy attorneys.

As a reporter covering both data privacy and the business of law, I like to find ways to write about the convergence of those two beats. Luckily for me, that hasn't been hard.

In the past six months, major law firms have been hiring attorneys left and right to be leaders and members of their privacy and cybersecurity practice groups. Demand for privacy and data security lawyers is high thanks to a constantly evolving legal and regulatory environment in the United States and abroad and the ever-growing threat that businesses face from data breaches, recruiters say.

Just this week, Squire Patton Boggs recruited Alan Friel, the leader of BakerHostetler's U.S. consumer privacy practice. Goodwin Procter recently brought on board Boris Segalis from Cooley to co-chair its privacy and cybersecurity practice.

Other firms bringing on new U.S. and European privacy and data security leadership include Dechert; Greenberg Traurig; Steptoe & Johnson and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. Firms have also been turning to in-house and government lawyers to build out their practices, as seen when senior Facebook cybersecurity lawyer Tiana Demas joined Cooley’s partnership in December.

Now it's back to my inbox, where there's probably another announcement waiting.

"Someday we'll have this case behind us. Maybe I'll still be alive."

U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco concluding a hearing on Wednesday in a 2013 lawsuit claiming 12,000 Apple Inc retail workers in California should have been paid for time spent waiting in security checks before breaks and at the end of their shifts. The 75-year-old said he would soon grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs on liability, following the California Supreme Court's February 2020 ruling in the case that state law requires workers to be paid for time spent in security screenings. Apple, represented by DLA Piper's Julie Dunne, could owe more than $60 million, court filings show. (Reuters)

In the courts

Texas-based theater chain Alamo Drafthouse through lawyers led by Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor's Matthew Lunn filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in Delaware, citing the "unprecedented industry-wide conditions" caused by the COVID-19 pandemic that has forced cinemas to close and movie studios to postpone releases. The filing is part of an asset-purchase agreement with Altamont Capital Partners and affiliates of Fortress Investment Group. (CNBC)
Johnson & Johnson has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a $2.12 billion damages award out of Missouri to women who blamed their ovarian cancer on asbestos in its baby powder and other talc products. Its lawyers, including Neal Katyal of Hogan Lovells, argued its due process rights were violated by consolidation of disparate claims from 22 women and the size of the damages award. (Reuters)
Katyal is keeping busy. The Hogan appellate specialist along with lawyers at Mayer Brown asked U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan to extend a freeze on about $504 million that Citigroup mistakenly sent to a group of Revlon Inc lenders while the bank appeals Furman's decision that they can keep the money. Citi said allowing them to distribute the funds to their investors would make it "very difficult, if not impossible" to recoup the money. (Reuters)
The 1st Circuit upheld a ruling preventing insurers of $3 billion in Puerto Rico highway bonds including Assured Guaranty and Ambac from taking their fight over toll revenues to a commonwealth court. The decision marked another win for the federally-appointed oversight board tasked with guiding Puerto Rico’s debt restructuring process, represented by Martin Bienenstock of Proskauer Rose. Hogan's Katyal (him again!) argued the appeal for the insurers. (Reuters)
The former owner of the gym chains New York Sports Clubs and Lucille Roberts will forfeit a $250,000 bond to settle New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit alleging it charged membership dues, failed to issue promised credits, and refused to honor cancellation requests after the COVID-19 pandemic forced it to close its New York gyms. Town Sports International Holdings, represented by Gordon Rees' Gregory Brescia, is now winding down, and James said she'll use the money as restitution. (Reuters)
U.S. District Judge David Hittner in Houston ordered Exxon Mobil to pay $14.25 million as a fine in a lawsuit by the Sierra Club over pollution from its largest U.S. crude oil refineries, $5.7 million less than what he initially told the company to pay. The 5th Circuit last year threw that initial penalty out and told the judge to determine which violations of the Clean Air Act specifically caused harm to members of the organizations living near Exxon's operations in Baytown, Texas. Exxon, represented by Butler Snow's Eric Nichols, said it is considering its next steps. (Reuters)
The SEC lost a bid to widen the scope of a lawsuit accusing miner Rio Tinto of concealing from investors the decline in
value of the Mozambican coal business. U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres in Manhattan declined to reconsider a ruling that narrowed the main fraud claim against Rio Tinto and former CEO Tom Albanese. Gibson Dunn's Mark Kirsh and Jones Day's David Woodcock are defending the company and Albanese, respectively. (Reuters)
Farmers' and environmental groups represented by the Center for Biological Diversity sued the EPA in the D.C. Circuit over its approval of a chemical company's application to sell a widely-banned chemical in Florida to protect citrus crops from insect damage. (Reuters)

Industry moves

Erika Collins is leaving Epstein Becker Green to co-lead Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath's international employment law team. Collins was previously the co-head of Epstein Becker's international employment law group. (Reuters)
Holland & Knight is bulking up its public policy and regulation practice group with tax partner Joshua Odintz. He leaves Baker McKenzie and is also the former chief tax counsel to the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform under President Barack Obama. (Reuters)
McDermott Will & Emery is pushing forward on its growth in Atlanta. The firm has added corporate restructuring partner Dan Simon to the office. He joins from DLA Piper. (McDermott)
Ropes & Gray is gearing up for more deal work with its two latest M&A hires. Sarah Dunn Davis is rejoining the firm from Affiliated Managers Group and will serve as counsel in Boston. Aileen Kim, who leaves Weil, Gotshal & Manges, will be counsel in New York. (Ropes & Gray)

Columnist spotlight

What Lady Gaga's $500K reward tells us about dogs and the law. When armed robbers stole two of Lady Gaga's French bulldogs last week, the mega-star offered an eye-popping $500,000 for their return. The reward highlights an anomaly in our legal system: Pets are property. Their worth under tort law recovery is generally limited to an owner's economic losses, as if you'd replace a dog the same way you would a car. In her latest column, Jenna Greene probes the peculiar legal status of companion animals and why her two rescue dogs could be priceless to her but worthless in the eyes of the law. Find out more about Gaga's bulldogs Koji and Gustav and animal law.

Imagining the COVID insurance MDL that wasn't. For the most part, businesses suffering from COVID-19 fallout have fared poorly in suing insurers for denying their claims for business interruption coverage. But the recent victories - one in which a judge refused to toss three bellwether suits and another in which a judge denied a motion to dismiss a nationwide class action - has Alison Frankel wondering if policyholders' lawsuits might be more successful in MDL. Go here for more of Frankel's analysis of COVID-19 insurance cases.

Check out other recent pieces from all our columnists: Alison Frankel, Jenna Greene and Hassan Kanu.

Lawyer speak: Interim restrictions on foreign telecoms equipment could spell compliance issues

Three new Federal Acquisition Regulations provisions are set to clamp down on government contractors’ use of telecommunications equipment and services from companies linked to China, including Huawei and ZTE. Cohen, Seglias, Pallas, Greenhall & Furman associate Jeffrey Jakob in a recent article examines how contractors could face "a significant compliance burden" with the newly-minted, interim provisions until the final rules are set in stone by the FAR Council. The final rules are expected to be issued this year. Read more here.

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