Lawyer 2 Lawyer

On June 12, 2016, tragedy struck at Pulse, a popular nightclub within the LGBT community in Orlando, Florida, after a gunman, Omar Mateen fatally shot 49 people and injured 53. This tragedy is one of  the deadliest mass shootings in the United States and the nation's worst terror attack since 9/11. In a Father's Day address, President Obama said gun violence was "preventable" and too common. "It's unconscionable that we allow easy access to weapons of war in these places,"  he said.  And just yesterday, a divided Senate voted down 4 gun control measures. So what needs to change when it comes to gun laws, all while protecting the Second Amendment? And can bipartisan gun legislation curb gun violence and prevent future mass shootings? In this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join attorney Steven W. Dulan, first vice chair of the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners and Arkadi Gerney, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, as they take a look at gun laws and the tragedy in Orlando. They will talk reaction, the gun control debate, the Second Amendment, Florida gun laws and potential legislation.  Attorney Steven W. Dulan is first vice chair of the Michigan Coalition of Responsible Gun Owners. MCRGO is the largest state-based firearms advocacy organization in America and its mission is to promote safe use and ownership of firearms through education, litigation, and legislation. Steve has appeared on various media outlets to discuss gun ownership, including CNN (with Christiane Amanpour and Piers Morgan), FOX and Friends, NPR, and HuffPost Live. Attorney Arkadi Gerney is senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he focuses on crime and gun policy. Arkadi previously worked as special advisor and first deputy criminal justice coordinator to former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, where he managed Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a national coalition that Mayor Bloomberg co-chairs. During four and a half years in the New York City mayor’s office, Gerney oversaw the coalition’s growth to more than 600 mayors, led successful campaigns to influence federal legislation, partnered with Walmart to develop a landmark gun seller code of conduct, and led New York City’s undercover investigation of out-of-state gun shows. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

In a highly publicized custody case involving a 6-year-old girl, the use of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978, a federal law that seeks to keep American Indian children with their American Indian families, has come into play. The child was recently removed from her foster home after a lower court judge ruled that Lexi’s Choctaw Indian bloodline requires her to live with relatives in Utah.  According to court records, Lexi was moved to foster care four years ago due to her birth mother’s substance abuse problems, her birth father’s criminal history, and custody issues involving both birth parents and other children. Lexi’s foster parents, have since filed an appeal to the California High Court In this episode of  Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join attorney Lori Alvino McGill, partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz and Chrissi Nimmo, assistant attorney general for Cherokee Nation, who has represented the nation in tribal, state, and federal courts since 2008, as they take an inside look at this case, tribal law, the Indian Child Welfare Act, and overall child custody cases. Attorney Lori Alvino McGill is partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Wilkinson Walsh + Eskovitz. Lori’s practice focuses on all aspects of appellate strategy, including issue preservation, briefing, argument, and obtaining (and opposing) Supreme Court review. She has handled high-profile civil and criminal appeals involving a wide range of constitutional and statutory issues in state and federal appellate courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Lori is presently representing the foster parents of Lexi and has appealed to the California’s highest court. Chrissi Nimmo is assistant attorney general for Cherokee Nation and has represented the nation in tribal, state, and federal courts since 2008. Chrissi primarily focuses on the Indian Child Welfare Act and in-house counsel duties for the nation. She represented Cherokee Nation in Adoptive Couple v. Baby Girl before both the United States Supreme Court and the South Carolina Supreme Court and in Nielson v. Ketchum before the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Chrissi also serves as the Adam Walsh Act Sex Offender Registration and Notification Compliance Office for Cherokee Nation. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

The Labor Department recently announced regulation changes pertaining to overtime pay for employees and their employers. Under these new rules, those who earn salaries of less than $47,476 a year will automatically qualify for overtime pay of time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week. Once the new rules go into effect on December 1, 2016, they will impact 4.2 million workers in the United States.  So what does this mean for business owners and their employees? In this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join Jane Lauer Barker, a partner at the New York labor and employment firm Pitta & Giblin LLP and Thomas Wassel, a labor and employment partner with the New York firm Cullen and Dykman, as they take a look at these recent overtime rule changes and the impact, pros and cons, and reaction from business owners and the workforce. Jane Lauer Barker is a partner at the New York labor and employment firm Pitta & Giblin LLP.  Jane concentrates in labor, employment, and employee benefits law and litigation and labor union representation.  Previously, Barker headed up New York State Attorney General's Labor Bureau where she oversaw civil and criminal enforcement of state labor laws and handled appellate litigation. Thomas Wassel is a labor and employment partner with the New York firm Cullen and Dykman. Tom has been advising employers on a wide range of labor and employment law matters since 1983.

An offshore investment scandal known as the Panama Papers has taken the world by storm. The controversy centers around the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and its connections to high-ranking political figures, their relatives, celebrities, and business figures, including Iceland Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson. Recently, a German newspaper announced that 11.5 million confidential documents between 1970 and 2015 had been leaked from the firm to journalists. These "Panama Papers" revealed how clients hid billions of dollars in offshore tax shelters.  There are many issues at hand here: establishing these offshore entities, evading taxes, fraud, laundering money, and overall corruption. On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts Bob Ambrogi and Craig Williams join Jessica Tillipman, the assistant dean for field placement at George Washington Law School and Professor William Byrnes, a member of the law faculty and an associate dean with Texas A&M University School of Law, as they take an inside look at the Panama Papers. They will discuss Mossack Fonseca’s role, shell companies and offshore bank accounts, the issue of data security, tax evasion, investigations into these clients, and future of Mossack Fonseca. Jessica Tillipman is the assistant dean for field placement at George Washington Law School and an expert in corruption, government ethics, and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. She is a senior editor of the FCPA Blog, which has been following the Panama Papers revelations. Professor William Byrnes is a member of the law faculty and an associate dean with Texas A&M University School of Law. William held a senior position of international tax for a Big 6 firm and has been commissioned on fiscal policy by a number of governments. He is currently developing a tax and legal risk management online curriculum for professionals. Texas A&M University is the fifth largest U.S. public research institution and one of only 62 institutions to be designated a member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

North Carolina’s House Bill 2, better known as the “Bathroom Law”, has taken center stage and has created a great debate. On March 23, 2016, Gov. Pat McCrory signed the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act, also known as House Bill 2 or HB2. The law bans people from using bathrooms that don't match the sex indicated on their birth certificates, which opponents argue is discriminatory toward the transgender community. Supporters of the new law say it is a safety and privacy issue, protecting women and children from men who use the law as a pretense to deliberately enter the wrong restroom. Legislation involving the transgender community is not only happening in the state of North Carolina, but Mississippi and Tennessee have pushed similar legislation as well. On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join Ilona Turner, legal director at the Transgender Law Center, Andrew Beckwith, president of the Massachusetts Family Institute and Professor Katie Eyer from Rutgers Law School as they take a look at North Carolina's HB2 controversy, reaction, litigation surrounding HB2, anti-LGBT discrimination bills and LGBT protections nationally, and the quest for equal rights for the transgender community. Ilona Turner was a staff attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), where her work frequently focused on issues affecting transgender clients. She previously practiced law at Cohen, Weiss, & Simon LLP in New York City, representing unions, union-run health and retirement plans, and employees. In the early 2000s she worked as the lobbyist for Equality California, where she helped to shepherd groundbreaking legislation that prohibited housing and employment discrimination against transgender people and dramatically expanded the rights of domestic partners in California. Andrew Beckwith is a graduate of Gordon College and the University of Minnesota Law School. Andrew is a judge advocate in the United States Marine Corps Reserve where he holds the rank of major. He has also served as an immigration trial attorney for the Boston office of the Department of Homeland Security. Katie Eyer joined the Rutgers law faculty as an assistant professor in June 2012. Katie also litigated civil rights cases prior to entering academia full time, and secured a number of precedents in the Third Circuit expanding the legal rights of LGBT and disabled employees. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

The FBI and Apple, Inc. have been immersed in an ongoing legal battle over privacy and security. The legal battle reached a boiling point when the FBI and Apple engaged in a dispute over whether the federal court may compel Apple to create new software that would enable the FBI to unlock an iPhone 5C it recovered from one of the shooters in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California. So, is this a threat to our data security or will Apple’s assistance to the FBI provide key information needed to prevent future terrorist attacks? On Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join David O’Brien, a senior researcher at the Berkman Center and Robert E. Cattanach, a partner with the international law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP and a former justice department attorney, as they take a look at the latest on the FBI/Apple Legal Battle. They will discuss San Bernardino, encryption, privacy, national security and the future impact of this case. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.  

Last month, Justice Antonin Scalia passed away unexpectedly sparking a huge reaction from the legal and political world. Justice Scalia was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 and is known for his conservative position in his rulings. Since his death, there has been great controversy over his replacement on the High Court and the nomination process under President Obama. In this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams join Tony Mauro, the Supreme Court correspondent for the National Law Journal and Kevin P. Martin, an appellate and regulatory litigation partner and co-chair of Goodwin Procter’s Appellate Litigation Group and Justice Scalia’s former law clerk, as they discuss the passing of Justice Scalia, his legacy, the controversy over a replacement, and the impact his death will have on the future of the Supreme Court and the laws of the land. Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

There is presently a public health crisis plaguing Flint, Michigan. Lead contamination in the water has led to a major public health danger. Back in 2014, Flint changed its water source from the treated Detroit Water and Sewerage Department water to the Flint River. Since then, Flint’s drinking water has had a host of problems. This Flint River water then caused lead from aging pipes to seep into the water supply, causing extremely high levels of lead. Between 6,000 and 12,000 children have been exposed and they may experience a range of serious health problems. On January 21, 2016, the E.P.A. issued an emergency administrative order finding that “the city of Flint’s and the state of Michigan’s responses to the drinking water crisis in Flint have been inadequate to protect public health and that these failures continue.” On Lawyer2Lawyer, hosts J. Craig Williams and Bob Ambrogi join professor Peter Jacobson, professor of health management and policy at the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan and professor Peter J. Henning from Wayne State University, as they take a look at the Flint water crisis, the violation of public health laws, liability, the impact on the Flint community and their health, litigation and long-term effect.   Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.

On January 25, 2016, in a 6-3 opinion written by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court ruled that those sentenced as juveniles to mandatory life imprisonment for murder, “should have a chance to be resentenced or argue for parole.” This ruling plays off of the 2012 decision in Miller v. Alabama, which struck down mandatory life terms without parole for juveniles. This now must be applied retroactively and could affect at least 1,000 inmates in similar situations across the country. In this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host Bob Ambrogi joins Emily C. Keller, a supervising attorney at Juvenile Law Center, and professor Christopher Slobogin from Vanderbilt Law School as they look at the recent Supreme Court decision, inside Montgomery v. Louisiana and Miller v. Alabama, the impact on past and future cases involving juveniles, the decision’s impact on the families of victims and juvenile justice reform. Emily C. Keller engages in litigation and policy efforts to improve the child welfare and justice systems, including efforts to eliminate juvenile life without parole. Emily served as co-counsel for Henry Montgomery in Montgomery v. Louisiana before the U.S. Supreme Court and co-authored an amicus brief in Miller v. Alabama, the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 case banning mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles. Emily has also submitted amicus briefs in cases around the country challenging the imposition of life without parole and other extreme sentences on juvenile offenders. Professor Christopher Slobogin occupies the Milton Underwood Chair at Vanderbilt Law School, where he directs the criminal justice program.  He has authored several books, including Juveniles at Risk: A Plea for Preventive Justice, published by Oxford University Press. Links: http://www.jlc.org/ http://www.jlc.org/about-us/who-we-are/staff/emily-keller http://law.vanderbilt.edu/bio/christopher-slobogin

On January 5, 2016, President Obama announced he would be taking executive action to reduce gun violence. Surrounded by families of the Sandy Hook tragedy and other mass killings, he vowed to not allow guns to get in the wrong hands. In the past decade, more than 100,000 people have died as a result of gun violence. So, will the President’s recent action impact gun control or will all remain the same? In this episode of Lawyer 2 Lawyer, host Bob Ambrogi joins David B. Kopel, adjunct professor of advanced constitutional law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and Laura Cutilletta, senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence as they take a look at this executive order on guns, “smart guns”, state laws, public reaction, and the impact this executive order could have on gun violence.   Special thanks to our sponsor, Clio.