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FDIC backs ban on banks trading for own profit
Lawyer News |
2011/10/11 09:46
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Banks would be barred from trading for their own profit instead of their clients under a rule being proposed by federal regulators.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. backed the draft rule on a 3-0 vote Tuesday. The ban on proprietary trading was required under last year's financial overhaul law.
For years, banks had bet on risky investments with their own money. But when those bets go bad and banks fail, taxpayers could be forced to bail them out. That's what happened during the 2008 financial crisis.
The Federal Reserve has also approved the draft of the so-called Volcker Rule, which was named after former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker.
The Securities and Exchange Commission and Treasury Department must still vote on it, and then the public has until January 13 to comment. The rule is expected to take effect next year after a final vote by all four regulators.
Congress and President Barack Obama had high hopes for the rule. But they left most of the details for regulators to sort out.
It's unclear how strictly the ban will be enforced. For example, it can be hard to tell whether an investment is intended to benefit a bank or its clients and whether federally insured deposits could be put at risk by these trades. |
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Hogan to be new courts administrative officer
Lawyer News |
2011/10/06 09:38
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Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan is the new director of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Hogan, a former chief U.S. District Court judge in Washington, will serve a one-year term as the chief administrative officer for the federal court system. He will oversee the federal judiciary's 35,000 employees and its almost $7 billion annual budget.
The Judicial Conference of the United States is the principal policymaking body for the federal court system. As its presiding officer, Chief Justice John Roberts selected Hogan for the position.
Hogan will begin Oct. 17. He plans to resume work as a senior federal judge after his term ends.
The previous director, James Duff, left this summer to become president of the Freedom Forum. |
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9th Circuit appeals court Judge Pamela Rymer dies
Lawyer News |
2011/09/22 23:53
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Judge Pamela Rymer of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has died after a years-long battle with cancer.
The federal court on Thursday announced the passing of the 70-year-old Rymer, who had been in failing health in recent months. The court says Rymer was diagnosed with cancer in 2009 and died Wednesday with friends at her bedside.
President Ronald Reagan first appointed Rymer to the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in 1983. President George H.W. Bush elevated her to the appeals court in 1989.
Rymer was born in Knoxville, Tenn., and raised in the San Francisco Bay area.
The court didn't list any survivors and said Rymer requested no services.
Two scholarships in her name have been established at Stanford University, where she graduated law school in 1964. |
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Former U.S. attorney Lampton dies at 60
Lawyer News |
2011/08/19 09:01
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Dunn Lampton, a former U.S. attorney in Mississippi who prosecuted two civil rights-era cold cases and a complex corruption case involving a wealthy attorney and state judges, has died. He was 60.
Among Lampton's best known cases was the prosecution of James Ford Seale, a reputed Ku Klux Klansman who died in prison this month. Seale was convicted in 2007 of two counts of kidnapping and one of conspiracy to commit kidnapping in the 1964 deaths of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore, both 19.
Lampton died Wednesday evening, according to former acting U.S. Attorney Donald Burkhalter, one of the prosecutors who served after Lampton's 2009 retirement
He was a hell of a trial lawyer and he did a good job as U.S. attorney, Burkhalter said Thursday. I think he always tried to do the right thing.
The cause of death was not immediately released, but Lampton had been in declining health. The U.S. attorney's office said the funeral will be at 1 p.m. Saturday at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Jackson. Burial will be private.
President George W. Bush appointed Lampton as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi in September 2001, putting him in charge of federal prosecutions in 45 counties.
Among the highlights of Lampton's career were prosecutions in two civil rights-era cases that led to the convictions of reputed Klansmen Seale and Ernest Avants. |
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DeMocker defense says former lawyer will keep mum
Lawyer News |
2011/08/01 07:03
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Lawyers for a Prescott stockbroker facing a murder retrial say they won't allow his former defense attorney to give a deposition in the case.
John Sears is one of two attorneys who quit Steven DeMocker's case in October, citing a conflict of interest. The move triggered a mistrial in November.
Deputy Yavapai County Attorney Jeffrey Paupore filed a motion last week that Sears be deposed as a material witness.
But DeMocker's current lawyer says any communications between Sears and DeMocker remains confidential and privileged.
The 56-year-old DeMocker is accused of killing his ex-wife, Carol Kennedy, with a golf club in July 2008 to avoid paying hefty alimony bills. He faces a life sentence if convicted. |
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Former Attorney Gen. Mike Cox will join Dykema Gossett
Lawyer News |
2011/01/12 09:02
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| pFormer Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox will join Detroit-based Dykema Gossett PLLC as a senior attorney in its litigation department, the law firm CEO confirmed today./ppCox, 49, who ended eight years as the state's chief law enforcement officer on Jan. 1, starts next Monday at Dykema's Detroit office. He will practice in health care fraud, white-collar criminal law and federal and state regulatory compliance, said Dykema Chairman and CEO Rex Schlaybaugh./ppSchlaybaugh said the firm leadership had talked with Cox for more than a month about his options upon leaving office. The attorney general seemed a good fit because of his involvement in health care transactions and the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, enacted last year./ppMike is someone with a great deal of experience with the complexities of implementing that law and a great interest in it, which will be very important to some of our strategic clients, Schlaybaugh said./ppMany federal and state government agencies are also involved in aspects of these laws, and navigating that will be a high-demand area. In that way, I think he dovetails with our firm's needs very nicely./p |
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'Train geeks' give railroad agency high marks
Lawyer News |
2010/09/05 23:17
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| pOn the top three floors of an office building wedged between the railroad tracks and the Southwest Freeway in Washington, a tight-knit staff of lawyers, economists and analysts churns out reviews and decisions in one of the most obscure corners of the federal government. /ppThis year, the Surface Transportation Board has held hearings on coal shippers who ignore rules on coal-dust dispersal and a railroad's request to abandon a freight line in Northern Maine. It has investigated community complaints about the merger of Canada's national railway with a Chicago area railroad. /ppPretty dry stuff. Yet the 150 bureaucrats tasked with the economic regulation of U.S. freight railroads came out on top among small federal agencies last week in a survey by the Partnership for Public Service of the Best Places to Work in government. /ppThe self-described crew of train geeks and experts in the arcane field of railroad law gave their office high marks for teamwork (85 percent) and pay (81 percent) and their bosses winning scores for leadership (87 percent). They know it sounds trite, but they describe themselves as a family with parents who are demanding but fair and have pride in what they do, since not a lot of other people understand it. /p |
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