Our mission is to expose and remedy corruption in the Probate Court of Cook County, Illinois. We assist, educate and enlighten families of the dead, the dying, the disabled and the aged to better understand their rights in order to protect themselves from the excesses of the Probate Court of Cook County. ProbateSharks.com is dedicated to networking the human element of people to people. We join together in reforming the corrupt Cook County Probate Court system.
Showing posts with label Media and Journalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Media and Journalism. Show all posts
Editor's note: Your ProbateShark suggests that the IARDC et al, including Mr. Larkin should attend this conference. Lucius Verenus, Schoolmaster, ProbateSharks.com
Then you should attend Above the Law’s inaugural Attorney@Blog conference. One of the nation’s preeminent First Amendment litigators, Floyd Abrams of Cahill Gordon, will deliver opening remarks. And then I will moderate a panel on free speech online, featuring the following distinguished panelists:
Marc Randazza of the Randazza Legal Group, a leading First Amendment lawyer — he has represented ATL in various matters — and editor of the the Legal Satyricon;
Nabiha Syed of Levine Sullivan Koch & Schulz, recently recognized by Forbes as “one of the best emerging free speech lawyers,” for her work representing such clients as the New York Times and The Guardian U.S. (of WikiLeaks fame); and
The panel will discuss emerging free speech issues and offer practical advice on how to avoid legal pitfalls online. If you’re a media lawyer, a journalist, a blogger, or just someone interested in these topics, you should definitely attend.
For more information and for tickets to the conference, please click here. The conference includes lunch and CLE credits (including coveted ethics credits). We hope to see you on March 14! Attorney@Blog Conference [Above the Law]
Remember the 80s? Big hair, Dynasty, Huey Lewis was popular for some reason. Well, Judge Jed Rakoff remembers the 80s, and he also remembers the way the federal government used to actually investigate and prosecute people who committed massive financial crimes — Mike Milken, Ivan Boesky, Charles Keating, a bevy of other savings and loans kingpins. Good times.
And Judge Rakoff wants to know what happened to prosecuting financial crimes, specifically the sort of fraud that crippled the economy. So he took to the pages of the New York Review of Books to ponder all the financial prosecutions that could have been. And he has some theories about what happened and how prosecutors could do a better job in the future.
It’s a fascinating look at a bunch of ideas that the government is going to totally ignore…
First of all, congratulations to Judge Rakoff on hearing the last financial crime case he’ll ever hear. The Second Circuit recently set forth its “Jesus, keep your mouth shut” standard for judges — removing judges sua sponte from cases if the judge expresses any public opinion that could be construed as a bias. A scathing essay calling out the government for failing to prosecute high-profile financial criminals is not appreciably different than saying, “I do think that I treat the government as only one more litigant” or “they have to prove their case like anybody else.” In fact, while Judge Rakoff reminds the reader that his general conclusions do not indicate that he prejudges any case, this essay is probably more provocative than Judge Scheindlin’s statements. David Lat thinks courts should not impede judicial transparency, but he’s not on the Second Circuit. Yet.
Anyway, back to the present essay. Judge Rakoff rejects the premise that there aren’t any prosecutions because when the business practices that led to the financial crisis were entirely innocent upon closer scrutiny. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a multibillion-dollar, economy-crippling fraud. If you don’t feel like reading the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission report that Judge Rakoff cites, this is pretty much everything you need to know about how we got cornholed by these guys:
And these folks have basically escaped all criminal liability for these actions as the statute of limitations on all the possible claims run out. Yet the bigwigs on Wall Street are feeling persecuted. So sensitive.
Judge Rakoff notes that the Department of Justice has provided three — really, really weaksauce — reasons for its reticence to prosecute anyone involved in this debacle. First, that it is difficult to prove intent, prompting Judge Rakoff to offer a refresher course on the concepts of “willful blindness” and “conscious disregard.” Second, the Judge cites Lanny Breuer, the former head of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division who’s now back at Covington, for the proposition that prosecutors were gun-shy because they had to prove that the other side of the transaction, often sophisticated institutions, relied on misleading statements:
Actually, given the fact that these securities were bought and sold at lightning speed, it is by no means obvious that even a sophisticated counterparty would have detected the problems with the arcane, convoluted mortgage-backed derivatives they were being asked to purchase. But there is a more fundamental problem with the above-quoted statement from the former head of the Criminal Division, which is that it totally misstates the law. In actuality, in a criminal fraud case the government is never required to prove — ever — that one party to a transaction relied on the word of another.
Crackerjack legal insight from the Department of Justice. The average share of stock is held for a mere 22 seconds. In the 60s, we envisioned supercomputers guiding astronauts to Jupiter — and killing them. Fast forward to today and we’re building supercomputers to churn 10,000 shares of Toys Я Us in 2 seconds.[1] Progress!
Putting aside whether all the local school boards and the like who bought these toxic assets are really “sophisticated” financial entities, Judge Rakoff seems to recognize, unlike the Department of Justice, this new lightspeed reality where sophisticated institutions consciously forfeit their considered judgment to make fast cash. A system that calls olly olly oxen free so long as the direct victims have in-house counsel isn’t really a justice system.
The DOJ doesn’t think it’s done anything wrong:
Brian Fallon, a Justice Department spokesman, said Judge Rakoff “does not identify a single case where a financial executive should have been charged, but wasn’t.”
“The department has criminally prosecuted thousands of defendants for financial fraud and other related crimes in the last five years, and there are a number of active investigations still ongoing,” he added. “Even in striking the nation’s largest-ever settlement with JPMorgan last month, the department preserved its ability to investigate and potentially charge individuals at the company if the evidence supports it.”
Right. Because Judge Rakoff repeatedly points out that he isn’t passing judgment on any individual cases. Trying to derail a broad policy discussion by appealing to “where’s the specific case” instead of actually responding to the warrants is just lazy.
The final DOJ excuse that Judge Rakoff swats down is the notion that bankers can be “too big to jail.” He notes that the infamous Eric Holder quote suggesting that prosecutions could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy,” referred to prosecuting institutions rather than the individuals who run them. And this gets to Judge Rakoff’s ultimate point — the DOJ is far too obsessed with prosecuting institutions instead of individuals:
In recent decades, however, prosecutors have been increasingly attracted to prosecuting companies, often even without indicting a single person. This shift has often been rationalized as part of an attempt to transform “corporate cultures,” so as to prevent future such crimes; and as a result, government policy has taken the form of “deferred prosecution agreements” or even “nonprosecution agreements,” in which the company, under threat of criminal prosecution, agrees to take various prophylactic measures to prevent future wrongdoing. Such agreements have become, in the words of Lanny Breuer, the former head of the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division, “a mainstay of white-collar criminal law enforcement,” with the department entering into 233 such agreements over the last decade. But in practice, I suggest, this approach has led to some lax and dubious behavior on the part of prosecutors, with deleterious results.
This is a tad unfair. In a world where the government has slashed resources for investigating financial crime and the SEC has more or less walked away from this kind of thing, getting the company to pony up for outside counsel to conduct an investigation is all but a practical necessity. Plus, since one half of the government is hell-bent on having no regulations at all, any policy that encourages prophylactic measures is probably worth it. However, Judge Rakoff is right that this “mainstay of white-collar criminal law enforcement” is regrettable. If the government were allowed to invest in expanding the FBI and the SEC wasn’t so afraid of its own shadow that it focuses on what Judge Rakoff calls “smaller, easily resolved cases,” we wouldn’t need internal investigations — but it’s not like the DOJ had a ton of choice in drifting toward this result.
Ultimately, Judge Rakoff appeals to the DOJ to refocus its efforts on investigating criminal cases against individuals committing financial crimes. Contrary to what Matt Kaiser posited last week, the reason the U.S. Attorney’s Office isn’t highlighting the number of people it lands in prison is because it’s doing a really bad job of it.[2] The value in SIGTARP’s declaration that it’s securing longer prison sentences than anyone else is in telegraphing to Wall Street that at least one agency is not asleep at the switch.
Prison may be an overused response in the United States,[3] especially for low-level, non-violent offenders. But the threat of prison is critically underemployed when it comes to the criminals capable of wrecking the most damage on the most Americans.
As Adam Liptak characterizes the Judge’s words, “The fear of prison concentrates the mind in a way the prospect of writing a check on a corporate account does not.” [1] 2014: A Wall Street Odyssey [2] Not to mention, the U.S. Attorney’s Office does highlight the number of people it puts in prison and for how long, in the United States Attorneys’ Annual Statistical Report. [3] The incarceration rate in the United States from 1920 through 2006: The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted? [New York Review of Books] Stern Words for Wall Street’s Watchdogs, From a Judge [New York Times] Err on the Side of Allowing Speech [New York Times] Earlier: Putting People In Prison To Get To The Cool Kids’ Table
“I’m leaving the legal profession.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Disney World!”
This is, in a nutshell, the story of the latest lawyer featured in our series on career alternatives for attorneys. But there is a lesson here of broader applicability.
Are you looking to leave the law? Your treasure trove of “useless” knowledge could be a valuable asset….
After graduating from Seton Hall Law School, clerking, and practicing with his father for almost a decade, Lou Mongello turned a longtime obsession into a full-time occupation. He explains how he transformed his lifelong interest in the world of Disney into a successful business, in this interview with Spencer Mazyck of Bloomberg Law:
It’s an inspiring story, isn’t it? Mongello took his incredible knowledge of all things Disney and parlayed it into a thriving multimedia enterprise, featuring radio and video shows, books, and websites. And as he explains in the video, he gives back to the community of Disney lovers through the Dream Team Project.
If you might want to follow in Mongello’s footsteps, try your best to maintain hobbies or interests outside practicing law. You never know how or when an interest in a seemingly obscure topic could evolve into something that allows you to enter the Magic Kingdom — of life beyond the law. Stealth Lawyer: Lou Mongello, Disney Expert & Historian [Bloomberg Law via YouTube] Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of career alternatives for attorneys
We know what you must be thinking: how could the Chief Justice of the United States have anything in common with the woman who wrote and starred in Girls, the overtly sexualized hit series on HBO? Chief Justice John Roberts thinks that corporations are people whose money talks, while Lena Dunham often appears naked on the small screen while contemplating raunchy sex acts. The pair seem like complete opposites — but as we know from that fabulous Paula Abdul song, opposites sometimes attract.
As it turns out, Chief Justice Roberts and Dunham were both big hits this year with liberal thinkers. Yes, you read that correctly. Roberts, once a bastion of conservative hope, is now being praised as a liberal hero alongside a woman who starred in an Obama ad that likened first-time voting to losing one’s virginity.
They’ve even been named on a few year-end lists together. Let’s check them out….
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, Roberts and Dunham were both included in Esquire’s “Americans of the Year” issue, as well as the Atlantic’s list of the “Brave Thinkers of 2012.” Aside from being named on these lists, they differ in every way. The 57-year-old Chief Justice graduated from Harvard Law and served at the Justice Department, in the Office of White House Counsel, and as a D.C. Circuit judge, before heading to SCOTUS. Dunham, a 26-year-old writer/actress, graduated from college in 2008, where she studied creative writing. She’s been nominated for four Emmy Awards for Girls, but thus far, she hasn’t won any of them.
While Roberts is praised by Esquire for his “nimbleness” in “sav[ing] the court’s credibility,” Dunham is praised for being “the emblem of something — it’s just that no one’s sure what.” Over at the Atlantic, Chief Justice Roberts is recognized as being “both brave and shrewd,” and Dunham receives props for “acting like an underage street hooker to turn her boyfriend on.” Justice Scalia must be laughing his ass off right now.
So, while other Supreme Court justices are doling out career advice on Sesame Street and being named to Glamour’s annual “Women of the Year” list, the Chief Justice of the United States has been relegated to sharing a slot on multiple lists with a woman who, while she may be a genius in her own right, receives the most praise for her graphic depictions of this generation’s waves of sexual frustration.
The Wall Street Journal went so far as to name Chief Justice Roberts its “Liberal Man of the Year.” Perhaps this is Roberts’s karmic bitchslap for Citizens United. Either way, we think he should follow the WSJ’s advice and hire Lena Dunham as a clerk — it’d certainly be entertaining, and maybe she’d even get to proposition her boss again, just like she did at her law firm job on Girls. We’d totally watch that episode. Review & Outlook: Liberal Man of the Year [Wall Street Journal] John Roberts: An American of the Year [Politics Blog / Esquire] Lena Dunham Is Building an Empire [Esquire] Brave Thinkers 2012: John Roberts [The Atlantic] Brave Thinkers 2012: Lena Dunham [The Atlantic]
Then you should attend Above the Law’s inaugural Attorney@Blog conference. One of the nation’s preeminent First Amendment litigators, Floyd Abrams of Cahill Gordon, will deliver opening remarks. And then I will moderate a panel on free speech online, featuring the following distinguished panelists:
Remember the 80s? Big hair, Dynasty, Huey Lewis was popular for some reason. Well, Judge 
We know what you must be thinking: how could the Chief Justice of the United States have anything in common with the woman who wrote and starred in