A former enforcement attorney for the Securities and Exchange Commission was sentenced Friday to eight years in prison for his role in a a series of multimillion dollar pump-and-dump stock fraud schemes.

Dallas-based attorney Phillip Offill Jr., 51, was convicted by a jury earlier this year on 10 counts of wire fraud and conspiracy. He testified that he was acting within the law, but the jury rejected his defense, and so too did U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady.

"Your testimony ... was an affront to justice," O'Grady told Offill at Friday's sentencing hearing. "It was one of the biggest pack of lies I've ever heard."

Offill, who worked at the SEC for 15 years before taking a job at the Godwin Gruber law firm in Dallas, aided schemes that by conservative estimates cheated more than 1,500 investors out of at least $2.4 million. The fraudsters would pump up the value of dubious penny stocks and then sell the shares at inflated prices to unwitting buyers.

Eight other coconspirators have already been convicted and sentenced in a case that has been under investigation for more than three years. Most of the illegal transactions took place in 2004.

The eight-year term imposed on Offill was one of the most severe. Prosecutor Ed Power said the tougher sentence was deserved because Offill lied on the witness stand and because his status as a respected attorney helped provide cover for the fraud.

When the Howrey law firm called its incoming associates into a conference room last June to announce it was breaking from industry custom and changing the role of its entry-level attorneys, there was a fair amount of apprehension. After all, the news came at a time when the economic downturn was forcing other firms to cut salaries or tell associates to delay their start.

But the law firm's move now seems prescient.

"Howrey was a first-mover, not a fast follower, here. And now we're going to see some other firms" doing the same, said William D. Henderson, an Indiana University law professor who studies law firm economics.

Instead of wooing first- and second-year attorneys with ever-higher salaries, Howrey set up a two-year program it called First Tier that offered new attorneys reduced salaries in exchange for more training. First Tier was the final step in a progression toward changing how associates advance at the firm.

In 2001, Howrey replaced its typical summer associate program with a "boot camp" for aspiring litigators. In 2007, it announced it would eliminate "lock-step compensation," in which attorneys are promoted en masse based on graduation year, and replace it with a merit-based system -- a move the firm completed at the beginning of 2009.

The law firm that won Enron investors $7.2 billion in what was one of the largest class action suits in the history of securities law filed charges against Goldman Sachs on Monday.

Robbins Geller Rudman and Dowd filed the lawsuit in U.S. district court in Manhattan, aiming to recover investors' losses stemming from the fraud charges issued earlier this month by the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The suit, which currently names investors Howard Sorkin, Ilene Richman and "all other similarly situated" as the plaintiffs, is seeking class-action status.

It charges Goldman Sachs, as well as C-suite members CEO Lloyd Blankfein, CFO David Viniar, and President and COO Gary Cohn, with deceiving investors about the bank's financial conditions.

The complaint alleges that by failing to disclose conflicts in the sale of ABACUS 2007-AC1 -- the now-famed financial portfolio at the center of the SEC's charges -- Goldman Sachs caused investors to purchase the stock at artificially inflated prices.

Bill Clinton says someone who hasn't been a judge should be considered for the Supreme Court. But scratch the idea of the ex-president or his wife as a justice.

Clinton suggested that President Barack Obama follow a model that Clinton used when he tried unsuccessfully to persuade then-New York Gov. Mario Cuomo and then-Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to agree to be nominated to the high court.

Justice John Paul Stevens' recent decision to retire hands Obama a second chance to shape the court.

Clinton, who has not been a judge, said that at 63, told ABC's "This Week" that he's too old to be considered, much as he might enjoy serving on the Supreme Court. He said his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, also might have been interested in past years, but not now.

Bill Clinton, who also had two court vacancies during his first years in office, ended up nominating two federal appeals court judges, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Ginsburg was 60 and Breyer was in his early 50s.

The former president urged Obama to pick someone around 50 years old.

Obama's Democratic predecessor in the White House says Cuomo and Mitchell, who had been a judge before serving in the Senate, would have made good justices, but both turned him down. He said he hopes Obama takes a look at someone who hasn't been a judge.

Among those reported to be under consideration, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, 49, has never been a judge.

Public confidence in government is at one of the lowest points in a half century, according to a survey from the Pew Research Center. Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don't trust the federal government and have little faith it can solve America's ills, the survey found.

The survey illustrates the ominous situation President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party face as they struggle to maintain their comfortable congressional majorities in this fall's elections. Midterm prospects are typically tough for the party in power. Add a toxic environment like this and lots of incumbent Democrats could be out of work.

The survey found that just 22 percent of those questioned say they can trust Washington almost always or most of the time and just 19 percent say they are basically content with it. Nearly half say the government negatively affects their daily lives, a sentiment that's grown over the past dozen years.

This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein commented Thursday after hearing lawyers argue whether a settlement related to claims of property damages resulting from the terrorist attacks should be public.

A settlement of most of the property claims has been kept secret while Hellerstein decides what should be put on the public record.

Lawyers for insurance companies that have settled have argued for secrecy, saying it was a private deal involving sophisticated commercial plaintiffs.

A lawyer for developer Larry Silverstein, who has not settled property claims, has argued that the settlement be made public.

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP is pleased to announce that the firm's chairman of the executive committee, Guy N. Halgren, has been re-elected to a fourth consecutive, three-year term leading the firm.  Halgren was first elected to this management role in 2001.  Halgren is the first Sheppard Mullin chairman to hold this position for four terms.  

"Our partnership is very fortunate to have Guy at the helm for another term.  He's smart, fair and forward-thinking," said Benjamin R. Mulcahy, New York-based partner and member of the executive committee.  "Guy has been instrumental in growing the firm in terms of size, locations, and practice areas, while preserving Sheppard Mullin's tradition of collegiality and entrepreneurship."  

Sheppard Mullin has experienced significant growth in the past nine years.  The number of attorneys is now more than 500, which is more than 70% greater than the firm's attorney headcount in 2001.  During the same time period, the firm has geographically grown from a California firm, to a national firm with locations in New York and Washington, D.C., to an international firm with an office in Shanghai.  The firm currently has a total of eleven offices, having significantly expanded from four locations in 2001.

Comparing 2001 to 2009, gross revenue has climbed from $149 million to $361 million.  Practice area growth has occurred in a number of ways, including the establishment of an institutional entertainment and media practice in 2003, the significant growth of the firm's Intellectual Property practice group in recent years, and the strengthening of signature practices: Antitrust, Corporate, Finance & Bankruptcy, Government Contracts, Labor & Employment, Litigation, Real Estate/Land Use and Tax.  

Additionally, Sheppard Mullin's Business Trial practice group co-chair, Robert S. Beall, has been re-elected as the firm's managing partner for another three-year term.  He has held this firm management position since 2005.  Beall, based in the firm's Orange County office, has also been re-elected to the firm's executive committee for another three-year term. 

"I'm very pleased that Robert has agreed to serve as the firm's managing partner for another term.  Our talents complement each other.  The firm could not have made the tremendous progress it has without Robert's contributions,"  Halgren commented.

Partner Judy V. Davidoff has been elected to the executive committee for a three-year term.  Davidoff, based in the San Francisco office, has served as Real Estate/Land Use practice group co-chair and also as one of the firm's alternative fee czars.

About Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP

Sheppard Mullin is a full service AmLaw 100 firm with 550 attorneys in 11 offices located in the United States and Asia.  Since 1927, companies have turned to Sheppard Mullin to handle corporate and technology matters, high stakes litigation and complex financial transactions.  In the U.S., the firm's clients include more than half of the Fortune 100.  For more information, please visit www.sheppardmullin.com.