Dialogue with EOUSA and the AGAC

The San Francisco conference will include a dialogue with the leadership of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys (EOUSA) and the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee (AGAC). It will be held on Thursday morning, September 26, 2019, at The Westin St. Francis. It will be moderated by NAFUSA Board Member Donna Bucella, who served as the Executive Director of EOUSA (1997-1999). She also served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida (1999-2001). She is currently Vice President and Chief Compliance Office at 7-Eleven Inc.

Joining Donna will be Jessie Liu, the Chairwoman of the AGAC. Jessie was confirmed on September 14, 2017 as the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia. She last appeared at the NAFUSA conference in Washington in 2017, welcoming us as the local United States Attorney.

On behalf of EOUSA, Norman Wong, the Principal Deputy Director will join the dialogue. Norm began his career at the Department of Justice in 2000.

San Francisco Conference to Feature Panel on “Artificial Intelligence, Privacy and the Law”

On Thursday, September 26, 2019, the Annual NAFUSA conference will feature a panel discussion on “Artificial Intelligence, Privacy and the Law.” It will be moderated by NAFUSA Board Member Anne Tompkins, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in the White Collar Defense and Investigations Group. Anne served as the United States Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina (2010-2015).

The three panelists will be:

Courtney Bowman, Director of Privacy & Civil Liberties Engineering, Palantir Technologies. His work addresses issues at the intersection of policy, law, technology, ethics and social norms.

Scott Schools

Scott Schools, Chief Compliance and Ethics Officer at UBER, and a NAFUSA member (U.S. Attorney for Northern District of California and the District of South Carolina).

Eric Vandevelde, a litigation partner in Gibson Dunn’s Los Angeles office and a member of its White Collar Defense & Investigations, Privacy & Cybersecurity, Intellectual Property, and Crisis Management groups. He has also served 7 years as an AUSA in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California.

Michael Dreeben Retires From DOJ

Deputy Solicitor General Michael Dreeben announced in June that he will be leaving the Department of Justice where he has served for 31 years in the Office of the Solicitor General. Michael gave the Supreme Court Update at NAFUSA’s 2012 annual conference in Atlanta and was honored in 2016 in San Diego over his service upon having argued his 100th case before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the United States.

Then NAFUSA President Greg Vega presenting Michael Dreeben with a San Diego Padres jersey in 2016 in honor of Michel’s 100 cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court

On July 30, 2019, Solicitor General Noel Francisco posted a Tribute to Michael Dreeben (Noel Francisco, Tribute to Michael Dreeben, SCOTUSblog) in which he said, “Michael Dreeben knows more about criminal law than anyone else on Earth. But it’s not only his knowledge that sets him apart. It’s also his talent as an advocate, and his tireless devotion to his craft.”

Most recently, Michael was a leading prosecutor on Bob Mueller’s special counsel team.

Rick Hartunian Appointed to NAFUSA Board

With Barry Grissom’s resignation from the NAFUSA board of directors to run for the United States Senate, the NAFUSA ByLaws authorized the board to select a member to fill Barry’s vacancy in the class of 2021. The board has selected Richard (Rick) Hartunian to fill the remainder of Barry’s term.

Rick is a partner in the New York City office of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP, having joined the firm’s Investigations and White Collar practice in August, 2017 after a 20-year career with the Department of Justice. Rick served as the United States Attorney for the Northern District of New York from 2010 – 2017, and during his tenure was appointed Vice Chair and Chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee.

“I am truly honored to be appointed to the Board of this tremendous organization, whose purpose is to  promote and defend the integrity and independence of our United States Attorneys’ Offices.  It is a privilege to be associated with so many outstanding former DOJ colleagues, each of whom deeply understands the critical importance of that mission,” Rick said upon being notified of his appointment.

Barry Grissom Opens Campaign for US Senate

On July 1, 2019 NAFUSA board member Barry Grissom stepped down from the NAFUSA board and announced his campaign for the United States Senate from the State of Kansas.

In 2010, Barry was nominated to be the U.S. Attorney for Kansas and was unanimously confirmed by Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Senate.Barry is best known for helping lead the investigation and successful prosecution of the Wichita Airport and the Fort Riley bombers – two domestic terrorists who had plotted to kill hundreds if not thousands of Americans.

Working with local sheriffs and police, he helped take 23 members of the violent Norteños gang off the streets in Dodge City, and disarmed convicted felons throughout Western Kansas.

As U.S. Attorney, Barry worked with law enforcement and civil rights advocates to improve community relations, founded Kansas’s first Human Trafficking Working Group, helped clean up gang activity, oversaw Kansas’s Project Safe Childhood program targeting child sex offenders and led the charge among federal authorities to break up a dogfighting ring responsible for capturing and abusing over 400 pit bulls.

In 2020, Kansas will elect a new U.S. Senator due to the announced retirement of current Senator Pat Roberts. The state of Kansas has only had three “open” U.S. Senate races in the past 40 years.

Barry Grissom has dedicated his entire career to fighting for those most vulnerable in our society. Inspired by Atticus Finch in To Kill A Mockingbird, Barry has never lost sight of the fact that his purpose as an attorney is to use the law to ensure justice for all.

The son of a Korean War veteran, Barry grew up the oldest of three and spent his childhood moving all across the American South and Midwest because of his father’s job with the International Harvester Corporation. After his family moved to Shawnee Mission, Barry attended Johnson County Community College before graduating from the University of Kansas. To help put himself through college and law school, Barry worked odd jobs including painting houses.

After graduating from the Oklahoma City University law school, Barry came back home to Kansas to begin his career as an attorney. He founded a solo law practice focused on helping those who faced injustice – including standing up against discrimination, fighting for workers to get fair wages, and protecting those who faced the wrenching decision to declare bankruptcy after they had emptied their savings to pay their medical bills.

“It was always difficult to watch someone who had worked their whole life come into your office and drop their head in shame because they’ve had to declare bankruptcy. Not because they were wasteful, but because they had the bad luck of getting sick and needed to protect what few assets they had left. You never forget that.” – Barry Grissom

“Protecting the American people from terrorism and violent crime was our primary mission in the U.S. Attorney’s office. It was vital that we disrupt attacks against our homeland and bring terrorists to justice. I’m proud that our office kept Kansans safe.” – Barry Grissom

Barry lives in Northeast Kansas with his wife Renee. They have two children and two grandchildren.

###

Zach Carter To Retire as NYC Corporation Counsel

Mayor Bill de Blasio today announced on July 12, 2019, that NAFUSA member Zachary W. Carter, the City’s Corporation Counsel, will be retiring from his post at the end of August of this year. When he retires, Carter will have served nearly six years as the City’s chief legal officer, one the City’s longest-serving in the history of the Law Department.

“On behalf of the entire City, I want to thank Zach for his almost six years of dedicated service,” said Mayor de Blasio. “Zach is one of our City’s finest public servants. During his tenure, he has stood for fairness and equity, as is evident by his work settling with the Central Park Five and victims of the unconstitutional and unjust Stop and Frisk era. He has moved our Law Department forward, and our City is better off for it.”

“It has been my privilege to lead the finest government law office in the country. The dedicated lawyers and support professionals of the Law Department are without peer in their knowledge of the specialized areas of law implicated in the extraordinarily varied operations of dozens of agencies that provide essential services spanning education,  housing, environmental protection, law enforcement and public health. I will be forever grateful to the Mayor for giving me the opportunity to provide legal support for this administration’s policies and to participate in a quest to make this a thriving, fair and equitable city,” said Carter.


During his tenure, Carter resolved longstanding litigation, ushering in a new era of equity and justice for the City. Memorable settlements range from the overuse of stop and frisk and the Central Park Five case to excessive uses of force at Rikers Island and the underrepresentation racial minorities in the ranks of FDNY, all on terms that reconciled the values of fairness and equity with the obligation to keep New Yorkers safe. 


Carter has also implemented numerous changes at the Law Department which have made the Department more effective in carrying out its mission. Last year, he launched a Strategic Litigation initiative to expand the City’s impact litigation efforts and expanded the Family Court Division to handle increased caseloads after the City lobbied for and the State passed Raise the Age Laws so 16 and 17 year olds can no longer be charged as adults.

Carter oversees a staff of nearly 1000 lawyers and approximately 700 support professionals who defend the City, its agencies and employees in litigation, initiate lawsuits to advance the City’s interest, provide legal support for critical functions of all city agencies and ensure that the policies advanced by the City’s administration are grounded in sound principles of law.

Carter was appointed in 2014, having previously served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York and as both a Criminal Court and United States Magistrate Judge. When Carter steps down in August, Georgia Pestana, the agency’s First Assistant Corporation Counsel, will serve as Acting Corporation Counsel.  The City is launching a national search for Carter’s replacement.

Robert Morgenthau Dies, 99

Long time NAFUSA member Robert M. Morgenthau passed away at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, after a short illness. He was 99. A dues paying member of NAFUSA until his death, Morgenthau was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to serve as the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York in 1961. He served in that position until 1970. He was the only active member of NAFUSA from the Kennedy Administration. He served as the Manhattan District Attorney from 1975 until 2009. He was honored by NAFUSA at its 2010 New York Annual Conference upon his retirement from public service.

Robert Morgenthau and Lucinda Franks
Katherine Taylor For The New York Times

He is survived by his second wife Lucinda Franks, whom he married in the 1970s. He was the co-subject of her book, Timeless Love, Morgenthau, and Me, published in 2014.

As is our custom, NAFUSA has requested that an American flag be flown over Main Justice in Mr. Morgenthau’s honor and it will be presented to his family as a token of the regard with which he was held by his colleagues.

Click here to read The New York Times obituary.

Hardin Honored By Tennessee Bar

NAFUSA Immediate Past President Hal Hardin was recently honored at the Tennessee Bar Association Convention with this year’s prestigious William M. Leech Jr. Public Service Award, presented by the TBA’s Young Lawyers Division Fellows. The Leech Award is presented each year to a Tennessee lawyer who has given outstanding service to the legal profession, the legal system and the local community.

Hardin also participated at the convention on a panel with Congressman Bob Clement and Judge Ken Starr in the Bench/Bar CLE discussion of historical events.

Continuing his involvement in bar activities, on June 26, 2019, Hardin interviewed the Hon. Gilbert Merritt Jr., Senior Judge of the United States Circuit Court for the Sixth Circuit, as part of the oral history project of the Nashville Bar Association. Judge Gilbert served as the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee earlier in his career.