US attorney Yang takes $1.5 Mill to work at Lewis defense law firm

[caligirl]

Yang, Debra
T: [phone]
DWongYang
Partner Business Crimes and Investigations

Crisis Management
Los Angeles

Debra Wong Yang, 47, the Los Angeles U.S. attorney and a member of the president's corporate fraud task force, got north of $1.5 million to join Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher a few weeks later, according to two recruiters.

According to this report, Yang now "co-chair Gibson Dunn’s National Crisis Management Practice Group along with Washington, D.C. partner Theodore B. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, and New York partner Randy Mastro, who served as New York’s deputy mayor of operations under Rudy Giuliani. She is also expected to play a central role in the Business Crimes and Investigations Practice Group, the firm said." Olson of course was the Bush administration's solicitor general. Yang's colleague at the LA US attorney's office, assistant US attorney Douglas Fuchs, has also reportedly joined her at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Of course, Yang and Fuchs would have to recuse themselves from working on Lewis' defense. But interesting all the same that the very investigators in charge of what had to be a most uncomfortable investigation for the party in office got poached by the firm defending him.


http://www.warandpiece.com/

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I doubt you intended that strike-through.

And does this mean that the doc dump has happened?

[caligirl]

3. thanks, it keeps doing it don't know why.

[Divernan]

2. If Bush had been smart, he would have set up such deals for all the fired ones,

OR maybe he tried to and they continued to display the integrity which got them fired in the first place. You do recall they all kept their mouths shut until some idiot at Justice smeared their professional job performances. I understood that, because no law firm or corporation wants to hire anyone who publicly criticizes their last employer.

This signing bonus sure ups the ante at all the mega law firms - I bet tricky Ricky Santorum will now be demanding at least that much.

Just last week this Wall Street Journal article discussed "phat" signing bonuses for USSC clerks.
I believe that lawyers who clerk for federal district and appeals courts get about $15,000 signing bonuses. The new hires also get credit for the years spent clerking as if they had been with the law firm for that amount of time, in terms of their base salaries.

I have repeatedly pointed out in my posts on DU that any Bush appointee, or high level civil servant who takes the fall/voluntarily "resigns" and is then shoulders blame/responsibility for a Bush admin. screwup, is bribed into so doing by private sector jobs with lobbying/law firms, at many times their govt. salaries AND with (I believe I used these words) fat signing bonuses.

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/03/12/that-phat-200000-su... /

Posted by Peter Lattman
Corporate law firms pay Supreme Court law clerks $200,000 signing bonuses. That’s on top of a first-year’s starting salary of $145,000 to $160,000. “Which adds up to an awful lot of Pottery Barn sectional furniture for someone who is, on average, 26 years old and just two years out of school,” writes Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick in an essay that’s critical of the big bonuses thrown at these trophy hires.

Walter Dellinger, head of the appellate practice at O’Melveny, tells Lithwick that while not all of his best associates were Supreme Court clerks, “there’s a very strong overlap with extraordinary talent.” He adds: “One of the least appreciated things in the practice of law, is lawyering that rates even above truly excellent lawyering.” Sidley’s Carter Phillips confesses that he came up with the idea of law-clerk bonuses back in the 80s. “I’ll take the heat for creating this system,” he says. “But I was never the market leader for driving it up.”

Maybe there’s nothing wrong here, suggests Lithwick. After all, it’s a free market. And the bonuses could be used to pay off loans and then give lawyers the freedom to go into teaching or public service, she says.

But noting that a first-year associate who clerked on the Supreme Court will earn more than their former boss, “it’s hard to dispute the justices’ claim that the opportunity cost of staying on the bench has become almost impossible to ignore.” She quotes Justice Kennedy’s testimony before the Senate last month: “Something is wrong when a judge’s law clerk, just one or two years out of law school, has a salary greater than that of the judge or justice he or she served the year before.”

[grasswire]

4. Kenneth Starr's law firm, wasn't it?

And also that of Ed Meese, if I recall correctly.

[caligirl]

5. couldn't find their names listed. perhaps another time in the past.

[jimshoes]

6. Here it is w/o strikethrough

According to this report, Yang now "co-chair Gibson Dunn’s National Crisis Management Practice Group along with Washington, D.C. partner Theodore B. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, and New York partner Randy Mastro, who served as New York’s deputy mayor of operations under Rudy Giuliani. She is also expected to play a central role in the Business Crimes and Investigations Practice Group, the firm said." Olson of course was the Bush administration's solicitor general. Yang's colleague at the LA US attorney's office, assistant US attorney Douglas Fuchs, has also reportedly joined her at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Of course, Yang and Fuchs would have to recuse themselves from working on Lewis' defense. But interesting all the same that the very investigators in charge of what had to be a most uncomfortable investigation for the party in office got poached by the firm defending him.


http://www.warandpiece.com/

[caligirl]

7. love the red sneakers! Thanks.

[caligirl]

8. She has a lot of nerve saying this after taking 1.5 million to join

Congressman Lewis's defense team's law firm.

"The greatest travesty here is that you don't want to take away the independence of the U.S. Attorney's office," says Debra Wong Yang, who until last year ran the country's second-largest U.S. Attorney's Office, in Los Angeles. "The public relies on the impartiality of their prosecutions," adds Yang, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. "To have it operate on anything less does a huge disservice to us as a nation."

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1174035822692

March 19 2007

she left, supposedly volunteered, the day after the Nov 2006 elections.


Sent Law.com a letter to the editor complaining about their short research on Yang.

Comment re US Attorney scandel threatens alberto Gonzales job. If your going to quote a former US Attorney saying this " "The greatest travesty here is that you don't want to take away the independence of the U.S. Attorney's office," says Debra Wong Yang, who until last year ran the country's second-largest U.S. Attorney's Office, in Los Angeles. "The public relies on the impartiality of their prosecutions," adds Yang, a partner at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. "To have it operate on anything less does a huge disservice to us as a nation." You should do a bit more research and tell your readers about this: " ccording to this report, Yang now "co-chair Gibson Dunn’s National Crisis Management Practice Group along with Washington, D.C. partner Theodore B. Olson, a former U.S. solicitor general, and New York partner Randy Mastro, who served as New York’s deputy mayor of operations under Rudy Giuliani. She is also expected to play a central role in the Business Crimes and Investigations Practice Group, the firm said." Olson of course was the Bush administration's solicitor general. Yang's colleague at the LA US attorney's office, assistant US attorney Douglas Fuchs, has also reportedly joined her at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Of course, Yang and Fuchs would have to recuse themselves from working on Lewis' defense. But interesting all the same that the very investigators in charge of what had to be a most uncomfortable investigation for the party in office got poached by the firm defending him." and recruiters say she is getting $1.5 million for her services. WWw.warandpeace.com

Just a point on ethics I guess.

Elaine Bowers

[robinlynne]

9. Caligirl, I am trying to find the original article to substantiate this 1.5

million. I want to call Feinsteins office, but I have to have something to back it up with. The link doesn't have anything about Yang. Can you send me a link? Thanks, robinlynne. Feinstein is interested in her, but looking at it from the wrong perspective, as if she were fired....