Best Lawyers Magazine highlights one attorney in various locations and practice areas who receives the highest number of votes from his or her peers in the specific location.

NAFUSA member Larry Finder was named the Lawyer of the Year in White Collar Criminal Defense in Houston.  Finder was US Attorney 1993 in the SD of Texas.  Finder is a partner at Baker McKenzie.  Larry has a general white collar practice involving criminal and civil investigations (including internal investigations and defense of government investigations), parallel proceedings, grand jury practice, and trial practice. He routinely handles matters relating to all types of fraud (civil and criminal), the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, anti-bribery, criminal environmental offenses, criminal immigration offenses, criminal food and drug offenses, and corporate compliance counseling. He has been retained in some high profile matters, including an engagement by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to investigate and litigate the judicial misconduct of a federal judge, which resulted in the judge’s impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction in the Senate.

NAFUSA member and former board member Richard Roper was named the Lawyer of the Year in White Collar Criminal Defense in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  Roper served as US Attorney from 2004-2009 in the ND of Texas.  Roper is a partner at Holland & Knight where he focuses his litigation practice on white collar criminal defense, government investigations, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement and commercial litigation. His practice also involves directing internal corporate investigations and representation in qui tam litigation, antitrust matters, environmental criminal matters and complex immigration matters.

John Lamp served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington from 1981-1991.  Lamp also served with distinction in the US Army, where he was assigned to the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. He was deployed oversees and served in Vietnam before his honorable discharge.

After his service in the US Army, he served in the Office of the Attorney General of the State of Washington. Initially, he was an Assistant Attorney General under Roger Reed, representing EWU and all Eastern WA community colleges, and then was promoted to Washington State Attorney General for Eastern Washington.

Lamp passed away on May 25, 2022. He is survived by his brothers Don and Chris Lamp, his daughter Amanda Lamp and his granddaughter Avery, his pride and joy.

As is our custom, at NAFUSA’s request an American flag was flown in John’s honor over Main Justice and will be presented to his family as a token of the esteem with which he was held by his colleagues.

Lifetime NAFUSA member and former president Hal Hardin presented a flag flown over the Department of Justice to Judge Gilbert Merritt’s family at the Nashville Bar Memorial Service held on May 31, 2022.

Gilbert Stroud Merritt, Jr., the longest-serving member of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals died on Monday, January 17. He was 86. He sat of the bench for 44 years. He earlier served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee from 1966-1969 under President Lyndon B. Johnson. He received a bachelor of arts degree from Yale University and a bachelor of law from Vanderbilt University Law School. He is survived by three children and three grandchildren.

NAFUSA member Russell Coleman has announced his campaign for Attorney General for the state of Kentucky. Coleman served as U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky from 2017-2021.

Coleman has always known from a young age that his calling was in law enforcement. He served as an FBI agent, where he worked to protect national security and volunteered for an assignment in Iraq to help in an effort to fight terrorism.  Additionally, Coleman served as Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Oldham County and Senior Advisor and Legal Counsel to U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell.

“Our current Attorney General, Daniel Cameron, has been an outstanding fighter for conservative values, for the rule of law and for Kentucky. I look forward to building on his many achievements. I’m also incredibly grateful to the well-respected leaders who are endorsing my campaign. I’m proud to have their vote, and I will work hard to earn the support of every Kentuckian,” Coleman said.

NAFUSA life member Ed Stanton will lead the third-party review of Tennessee Department of Corrections lethal injection testing oversight by request of Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.  Stanton is a partner at Butler Snow and Commercial Litigation Practice Group Leader. The investigation and review resulted in a temporary reprieve for death row inmate Oscar Franklin.

As U.S. Attorney, Stanton served as the chief federal law enforcement officer for the Western District of Tennessee from 2010 to 2017, managing an office of approximately 100 attorneys and support staff in two locations.

Prior to becoming U.S. Attorney, Stanton served as senior counsel with FedEx. There he served as lead trial and corporate counsel on complex business and litigation matters including governmental investigations, class action, labor and employment, trademark infringement, transportation law and environmental matters. Stanton also served as lead counsel in jury trials in federal and state courts throughout the country.

Currently, Stanton serves as the Court-Appointed Monitor in the case of ACLU v. City of Memphis stemming from the Memphis Police Department’s violations of a federal consent decree.

Stanton, a lifelong Memphian, received his bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Memphis and his Juris Doctor from the University of Memphis School of Law.

At the conference in San Diego, Chuck Stevens was elected President of NAFUSA. He will serve through the 2023 conference in Half Moon Bay. Chuck replaces Karen Hewitt who continues on the Board as Immediate Past President. Prior to being elected as an officer, Chuck served two tours on the Board of Directors so has been committed to NAFUSA for over ten years.

Chuck is a partner in Gibson Dunn’s San Francisco office and serves as Co-Chair of the firm’s White Collar Defense and Investigations practice group. He served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of California in the Clinton Administration and was a member of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee. Previously he served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Central District of California and was a member of the Public Corruption and Government Contract Fraud Unit.

Chuck is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley School of Law where is served as Senior Note and Comment Editor of the California Law Review. He received his B.A. in English from Colgate University. He is an avid mountain and gravel bike racer, citing the rapidly decreasing number of racers in his age group as the key to his higher finishes.

Artwork by Amanda Hawthorne

The Fiske Fellowship was established in 2001 at the University of Michigan Law School by NAFUSA member Robert Fiske, ’55, a senior counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell and a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Three-year fellowships are awarded annually to up to four Michigan Law graduates who serve as government lawyers. Fellows receive a $5,000 first-year cash stipend and debt repayment assistance to cover required annual payments for all educational loans.

Inspired by this, a group of donors has made a $90,000 contribution to the Fiske Fellowship program. This was made possible by a group of current and former Davis Polk partners from the white collar practice group.

This donation was made in honor of Bob’s 90th birthday and to recognize his good work with the University of Michigan Law School in encouraging young lawyers to consider a path in the government.  Fiske commented:  “Those that go into private practice after working in government, as I did, are better lawyers for having had that public sector experience.”

President Biden nominated lifetime member Steve Dettelbach to be ATF Director.  An order was signed designating Gary M. Restaino, the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, to serve as Acting Director of the ATF who will continue to serve as U.S. Attorney while the Senate considers Mr. Dettlebach’s nomination.

Dettelbach served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio 2009-2016, and rejoined BakerHostetler in February, 2016, as a partner in the Litigation Group and co-leader of the firm’s national White Collar and Corporate Investigations team.

In his previous government service Dettelbach served for 12 years as a federal prosecutor at the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Criminal Section, U.S. Attorneys Offices in Maryland, Washington, D.C. and the Northern District of Ohio as a member of the Organized Crime and Corruption Strike Force, receiving numerous awards including Prosecutor of the Year by the International Association of Financial Crimes Investigators, special achievement awards during his tenure at the Department of Justice, and personal commendations from the U.S. Attorney General and the Director of the FBI.

Dettelbach earned his J.D. in 1991 from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, where he served as Senior Notes Editor of the Harvard Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review. He graduated summa cum laude with his A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College in 1988 and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.