Legal News

Mahoney Delivers Again, this Time for Joe Nacchio

By Ashby Jones

It must be the donuts. How else to explain Maureen Mahoney’s remarkable track record before various appellate courts? The Latham & Watkins litigator, who makes a practice of eating a donut before each argument, won again today, landing a reversal of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio’s insider-trading conviction.

“We are very grateful for this important victory,” said Mahoney. “If the government decides to retry the case, we expect him to be acquitted. The additional evidence will establish beyond any doubt that Mr. Nacchio did not commit a crime.”

We’ve rattled off Maureen Mahoney’s successes on this blog before. In 2005, she scored a victory for accounting giant Arthur Anderson when the Court overturned its criminal conviction, and successfully represented the University of Michigan Law School in its 2003 defense of its affirmative-action policy. According to this Denver Post article from last year, she has won 16 of the 18 high court arguments she’s taken on. And earlier this year, she seemed to have several of the justices on her side in a patent argument she handled on behalf of Quanta Computer Inc.

Late last year, the WSJ named her one of the 50 Women to Watch heading into 2008. She told the paper that she focused full-time on appeals in the late 1980s partly to avoid the travel associated with trial work. “I’d always been interested in it, but having two young kids is really what got me to make the move.”

The shift was one of few she has made in her career. Apart from a two-year stint as deputy solicitor general, she has spent the past 27 years at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C. “I’ve been married for 29 years, had the same secretary for 22 years and had the same housekeeper since our son [now 24 years old] was born,” she says. “I like stability.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).