U.S. Sen. George LeMieux will return to Gunster law firm after leaving office.

H. William Perry, the firm's CEO and managing partner, announced Tuesday that LeMieux will resume his legal practice Jan. 4 and provide corporate counseling to the firm's clients.

LeMieux first joined Gunster in 1994. He earned his law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, with his undergraduate degree from Emory University.

LeMieux left Gunster in 2009, after Gov. Charlie Crist appointed him to the U.S. Senate. LeMieux filled the seat left vacant by the resignation of Sen. Mel Martinez.

LeMieux did not seek re-election, and Former Florida House Speaker Marco Rubio won the seat in November. Rubio will take office Jan. 3.

David Boies challenged America’s lawyers to “bring the rule of law to its full fruition here in this country … to fulfill the goals and lofty rhetoric of our founding fathers,” as the keynote speaker at the Opening Assembly of the 2010 ABA Annual Meeting in San Francisco.

The rule of law was the assembly theme, as ABA members gathered in the Herbst Theater of the War Memorial Veterans Building, site of the signing of the charter of the United Nations in 1945.  

President Carolyn B. Lamm pointed to ABA efforts from activities of the Section of International Law to such projects as the Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative, the Rule of Law Initiative and the World Justice Project as advancing United Nations goals to spread democracy based on law around the world.

Boies, co-counsel with Ted Olson in winning a federal district court ruling Wednesday that overturned California’s Proposition 8, cited “numerous challenges to the rule of law in our own country,” in applying that theme at home.

When our nation was born, it consisted of “wes” and “theys,” Boies said, with the “wes” being white male property owners and the “theys” comprising everyone else.  As the national history unfolded, the circle of “wes” expanded to encompass more and more segments of society.  

“We have an opportunity to expand the circle of ‘wes’ until there are no more ‘theys,’” said Boies, urging lawyers to work toward ensuring that “liberty and equality and protection of individual rights is something that every citizen equally enjoys.”

To achieve that goal, Boies identified four challenges confronting his audience.

First, he suggested the rule of law works best when adversaries have equivalent resources, whether those resources are plentiful or sparse.   But the “time when our system tends to break down is when one party has tremendous resources and the other party does not.”  Those are the times that “threatened to undermine the protections of the rule of law… [and lawyers] need to find ways to reduce the imbalance,” he said.  He urged reducing procedural advantages that favor the “better resourced party,” and urged lawyers to not “use discovery as a war of attrition,” for example. 
   
Second, he called for “better tools to help juries” decide important but complex cases, such as allowing jurors to ask questions and take notes on testimony.

His third challenge was to “improve judges and the judicial machinery,” citing a “crisis in terms of financing the justice system in the United States.”  First year associates in his law firm are paid higher salaries than federal district court judges, and state court judges earn even less, he said.  “If we can’t afford to spend a fraction of what we are spending to expand that system to Iraq, something is wrong with our sense of priorities,” he maintained.  

All lawyers must stand up for the independence of judges, resisting threats to their safety when they make unpopular decisions, said Boies, noting that there already have been threats to harm the judge who  ruled in the Proposition 8 litigation.

Boies’ cited predictably equal application of the law without regard to the identity of the parties as the final challenge to the rule of law, saying that when rights depend on who is asserting them, “the rule of law is undermined.”

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.

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. 

• Drunk Driving (DUII, DUI, DWI) - including underage drinking and driving, refusing a breathalyzer test, driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol, and other drug or alcohol related driving offenses
• Criminal Driving Offenses - including manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, assault, hit & run, attempting to elude police, reckless driving and licensure issues
• Drug Crimes - including possession, delivery, and manufacturing of marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin, designer drugs and prescription drugs
• Property Crimes - including theft, embezzlement, forgery, fraud, computer crimes and burglary
• Violent Crimes - including menacing, stalking and assault
• Stalking - including criminal offenses and civil actions

Bernhard Schmid, the head of UBS AG’s legal department, left Switzerland’s biggest bank by assets to become a partner at a Zurich law firm founded by a former banker.

Schmid joined Kuoni Attorneys at Law on Feb. 1 to help the company increase its work advising banks, founding partner Wolfram Kuoni said by telephone yesterday. Schmid, who is Swiss, was one of three lawyers to share former General Counsel Peter Kurer’s workload when Kurer became chairman of the bank in 2008.

UBS paid a $780 million fine and disclosed the names of 255 account holders in February 2009 to avoid criminal prosecution in the U.S. on a charge that it helped thousands of wealthy Americans evade taxes. The bank hired Markus Diethelm from Swiss Reinsurance Co. to replace Kurer as general counsel in 2008.

Schmid is “wonderful for a firm like mine to tap into the banking market. He has an outstanding track-record,” Kuoni said in a telephone interview yesterday, adding that he wants to expand the practice’s work advising banks “one tier below” UBS and Credit Suisse Group AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank by market value.

A former Federal Trade Commission chairwoman will become the chief legal officer at Procter & Gamble Co.

The consumer products maker says Deborah Platt Majoras, who joined P&G two years ago, will succeed Steven Jemison on Feb. 1.

P&G says the 58-year-old Jemison will retire Sept. 30 after 29 years at the company.

The 46-year-old Majoras has been with the Cincinnati company for two years and moves up from senior vice president and general counsel.

During Majoras' 2004-2008 tenure at the FTC, the agency approved P&G's $57 billion 2005 acquisition of Gillette provided the companies sold some overlapping products.

P&G's chief legal officer handles litigation including patent and trade issues, regulatory compliance, and labor law.