Litigators of the Week: Covington Pair Score the Plea Deal Read Round the World

Friday means Litigator of the Week here at Lit Daily. In selecting the winner, we look at several factors. One is the amount of money on the line. By that measure, the Kirkland & Ellisteam that defeated a $350 million False Claims Act suit had a good shot. Another is interest of the case. For example, does it involve anyone who is regularly featured in People Magazine? The lawyers from Greenberg Traurig and McKool Smith who won $10 million in punitive damages on behalf of Katy Perry and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles hit that mark. There’s also the skill of the lawyering and long odds for victory. Here, we took a hard look at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan’s Jonathan E. Pickhardt. He prevailed after a six-day trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery on behalf of the Zohar Funds, a valuable portfolio of companies that their former manager, Lynn Tilton—aka the "Diva of Distressed”—claimed to own. Tilton was represented at trial by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s Randy Mastro,who just chalked up a win in September on Tilton’s behalf in an administrative trial for fraud at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. But not this time. Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights III found Tilton's key testimony to be "not credible" and her "hindsight observations" to be "revisionist." As strong as these contenders were, none could rival Covington & Burling’s Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony. Because perhaps the most important criteria we consider is the impact of the case. And it’s hard to top the significance of Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s plea deal. Kelner and Anthony secured an extraordinary deal for their client. As Cogan Schneier writes, the former National Security Adviser to President Donald Trump “reportedly faced a laundry list of potential criminal charges—everything from money laundering to violating the Logan Act to conspiracy to kidnap a Turkish cleric." Cogan continues: "That's why when news broke last week that Flynn would plead guilty in federal court to a single count of lying to federal investigators, it sent shockwaves not only through the media, but also through the Washington, D.C. legal community. "While we may never know what Robert Mueller III, the dogged special counsel, had on Flynn, it's hard to imagine a much better outcome for the retired general. That deal is a testament to the work of his lawyers, a team at Covington & Burling led by partners Robert Kelner and Stephen Anthony. Kelner and Anthony declined comment, but their peers in the white-collar bar are impressed by the result they achieved. "It’s the lawyers who need to assess litigation risk and optimal outcome, then advise their client," said Jacob Frenkel, chair of the government investigations practice at Dickinson Wright and a former federal prosecutor. "They clearly negotiated effectively and enjoyed the trust and confidence of their client, which is essential in such life-altering cases." Cogan goes on to dissect the pair’s prior experience and three key strategies for securing the plea deal that may wind up being the key to Mueller’s investigation. Read the full piece here.

Rapper Who Promised $1M Reward for Laptop Settles Case

The case of the $1 million laptop reward is finally over. And it’s a cautionary lesson for us all: Don’t say you’ll give someone a million bucks if you don’t mean it. Grammy-nominated rapper and producer Ryan Leslie lost his laptop in 2010 while on tour in Germany. He went on YouTube and promised a $1 million reward for its return. But when Armin Augstein found it in a park and turned it over to the police, Leslie balked at paying. The reward was actually for the return of his intellectual property, Leslie’s lawyer Anthony Patterson, a solo practitioner in Pittsburgh, argued. When his client got the computer back, its hard drive was broken, so he shouldn't have to pay up. Mmm no. A federal jury in Manhattan in 2012 said Leslie was still on the hook. He and his company NextSelection Inc. declined to pay and later filed for bankruptcy in the Southern District of New York. So Augstein, represented by Phillips Nizer partners Steven Thal and Michael Fischman, brought suit in the bankruptcy proceeding to have the debt to him excluded from any discharge. The parties have now reached a tentative settlement, subject to approval on Dec. 21. The deal: Augstein gets the rights to Leslie’s entire music catalog until Augstein receives $538,000 in royalties. Which seems like pretty generous compensation for turning in a laptop to the police.

What's Up with Alan Dershowitz?

The Washington Post had an interesting article on Thursday headlined “Alan Dershowitz’s new reality: Tweeted by Trump, shunned by liberal friends.” It poses a question I myself have been wondering—what the heck has happened to Alan Dershowitz? The famed defense lawyer and retired Harvard Law professor—a lifelong liberal—has been become a hero to Trump supporters. Dershowitz espouses the legal theory that the president can’t be guilty of obstruction of justice simply for firing the FBI director. He says that’s just exercising the powers of his office. The theory has been roundly criticized, but Dershowitz said, “I would say that 25 times people have either written me, called me, or told me in person and said, ‘You’re right. You’re 100 percent right. Your arguments are solid, but why do you have to say it? Just keep quiet. Don’t help them.’ ”

Taylor Swift's Record in Denver Federal Court

Among the women on Time’s “Person of the Year” cover as “The Silence Breakers” is singer Taylor Swift. She’s included based on her win at trial against a disc jockey who she said fondled her buttocks during a photo op at a pre-concert meet-and-greet in 2013. The Lit Daily named her lawyer, Venable partner J. Douglas Baldridge, litigator of the week in August after a federal judge in Denver threw out the disc jockey’s suit against Swift for interference with contractual obligations, and a jury found that he assaulted her. She asked for—and was awarded—a token $1 in damages. Her testimony was blunt and powerful. When the disc jockey’s lawyer, Gabe McFarland, said there was nothing visibly inappropriate happening in the photo of Swift and his client, she addressed him by his first name. “Gabe, this is a photo of him with his hand up my skirt—with his hand on my ass. You can ask me a million questions—I’m never going to say anything different. I never have said anything different.” McFarland pressed on, noting that her dress in the photo is not visibly ruffled. “Because my ass is located in the back of my body,” Swift said. And Swift refused to let McFarland make her feel guilty about his client losing his job. "I’m not going to let you or your client make me feel in any way that this is my fault. Here we are years later, and I’m being blamed for the unfortunate events of his life that are the product of his decisions—not mine.” In an interview with Time, Swift said, “I’m told it was the most amount of times the word ‘ass’ has ever been said in Colorado federal court.”

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