Legal News

Ted Stevens? Pain Is AmLaw 200?s Gain

By Nathan Koppel

It's not hard for top law firms to find a silver lining in just about any catastrophe. Take the prosecution of former Senator Ted Stevens.

Earlier this month, as LB readers are well aware, D.C. fed judge Emmit Sullivan called for an investigation into six federal prosecutors, who have been accused of failing to provide exculpatory information to Stevens's defense lawyers.

Eric Holder dropped the Stevens prosecution, and now the question is whether the federal prosecutors should be charged with criminal contempt.

And that's where the BigLaw juggernaut comes into the picture.

The DOJ is footing the legal bill for the prosecutors ─ or at least part of the bill ─ and the lawyers have hired some of the nation's top firms for help, according to this post in the Legal Time's BLT blog.

The BLT notes that the DOJ will reimburse the prosecutors up to $200 per hour in legal fees, not to exceed 120 billable hours per month, for a total reimbursement of $24,000 per month. Now, $200/hr is roughly a paralegal's rate at many top firms, but, still, all works is good work in this economy, especially such a high-profile assignment.

So, who's been tapped to work on the matter? Here's quick and dirty scorecard:

Reid Weingarten at Steptoe & Johnson is representing DOJ prosecutor Ed Sullivan;

Robert Luskin, the Patton Boggs lawyer who represented Karl Rove in the Valerie Plame matter, is representing DOJ prosecutor Nicholas Marsh;

Kenneth Wainstein at O'Melveny is repping the Alaska-based prosecutor Joseph Bottini;

William Taylor III, the Zuckerman Spaeder lawyer who represented Milberg in the criminal case, is representing William Welch II, head of the DOJ's Public Integrity Section;

And, the BLT reports, DOJ attorney Brenda Morris, in talks with Hogan & Hartson's Chuck Rosenberg.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 24, 2009 (boomark / email).