Posts on ‘February 18th, 2009’

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. was in an expansive and reminiscing mood earlier this month in a talk at the Rehnquist Center at the University of Arizona Rogers College of Law. Roberts called Rehnquist, for whom he clerked, one of the “two or three most significant successors” to the great Chief Justice John Marshall. Roberts also revealed one of his own key strategies for achieving consensus on the Court through the assignment of opinion-writing, likening the task to working a Rubik’s Cube.

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey will join Debevoise & Plimpton as a New York partner in the firm’s litigation department, the firm announced Monday. Mukasey, who replaced Alberto Gonzales as attorney general in November 2007, will focus his practice primarily on internal corporate investigations, independent board reviews, corporate governance and monitorships, the firm said in a news release.

Three days after disgraced attorney Marc S. Dreier was released from jail to begin house arrest at his Manhattan apartment, papers filed in the Dreier LLP bankruptcy proceeding reveal that Dreier’s 250-attorney firm might not be insolvent after all. According to a summary of schedules filed Monday with the Southern District of New York Bankruptcy Court, Dreier LLP has $59 million in assets and $42 million in liabilities, some $30 million of which is owed to creditors holding secured claims.

DOJ prosecutors who secured the conviction of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens will play a reduced role in post-trial litigation, the chief of DOJ’s Public Integrity Section has told a judge. Three other DOJ lawyers have been tapped to take over the litigation. The move comes just three days after the principal deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section and two other DOJ officials were found in contempt for disobeying court orders. The bulk of the post-trial litigation is rooted in allegations of prosecutorial misconduct.

A New York City law requiring McDonald’s, KFC and other chain
restaurants to post calorie information on menus and menu boards is not
pre-empted by federal law on disclosure of nutritional information, an
appeals court ruled Tuesday. The 2nd Circuit also said that requiring,
for example, Chili’s to tell customers that its smoked turkey sandwich
contains 930 calories does not violate the First Amendment.