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3. Longtime Boston-based law firm will disband…

Law Firms

Longtime Boston-based law firm will disband after lawyer defections

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 1, 2024, 9:15 am CDT

Boston-based Burns & Levinson is winding down after losing nearly half of its attorneys to other law firms this year.

Burns & Levinson was founded 64 years ago, according to a Sept. 27 statement by Paul R. Mastrocola, the firm’s managing partner. It had more than 100 lawyers before the departures.

Law.com, Law360, Above the Law and the Boston Globe are among the publications with coverage.

“We are sad to bid farewell to this amazing Boston institution; but we know that the lawyers and staff who chose to honor their commitment to one another and remain together throughout this time are the best in the business and will thrive in their new homes,” Mastrocola said.

According to Mastrocola, Burns & Levinson had a record year for revenue in 2023 as a result of courtroom victories, corporate deals and other work.

“The year also brought important—if uncomfortable for some—discussions about governance, compensation and support,” he said.

The defections that began in 2024 included the departure of 13 intellectual property and litigation lawyers to ArentFox Schiff and 28 corporate lawyers to Blank Rome, according to Law.com.

The situation led Burns & Levinson to discuss mergers with other firms.

“Over the past months,” Mastrocola said, “we have been honored by the offers of merger we have received from national and regional firms. Unfortunately, after exhaustive analysis, we have determined that the economics, the timeline and the complexity of deals offered would not work for the remaining partners as a group and for our wonderfully varied practices.”

Burns & Levinson “will continue in the short term and then will engage in an orderly wind down of its operations,” Mastrocola said.

After Mastrocola’s announcement came more news of lawyer departures. Ten lawyers are joining McCarter & English, and 10 others are joining Barclay Damon, report Law.com, Law360 and Reuters.

A South Carolina man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for the murder of a longtime friend turned landlord who eventually served him an eviction notice amid their protracted falling out.

On Thursday, Nathan Wesley Zeigler, 64, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by 1st Judicial Circuit Court Judge Heath Taylor for the murder of Charles Jacob “CJ” Young, 82.

For 20 years, Young allowed Zeigler to live in his home for free.

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3. Longtime prosecutor resigns after judge tosses…

Prosecutors

Longtime prosecutor resigns after judge tosses him from case, citing Perry Mason-type revelations

By Debra Cassens Weiss

March 14, 2024, 10:09 am CDT

Longtime Miami-Dade County, Florida, prosecutor Michael Von Zamft has resigned after a judge disqualified him and a colleague from the resentencing of an alleged gang leader convicted of four murders.

Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson of the 11th Judicial Circuit Court of Florida in Miami-Dade County said newly discovered evidence suggested that witness testimony had been manipulated in the prosecution of gang leader Corey Smith, and that jailed witnesses had been granted favors, including conjugal visits, for their cooperation.

Wolfson also cited a recorded phone call between Von Zamft and a jailed witness that could be viewed as a “cryptic message” about eliminating an unreliable witness, although the judge did not accept that interpretation.

The Associated Press, the Miami Herald, Local10.com and Law.com have coverage of Wolfson’s March 6 decision.

“On television, Perry Mason, defense attorney extraordinaire, always managed to find the smoking gun at the end of every episode,” Wolfson wrote. “In real life, this happens very rarely. It happened here.”

Wolfson tossed Von Zamft from the case, saying he had a “prosecutorial philosophy of winning at all costs.” She also disqualified a second prosecutor who “emphatically argued” that no unethical conduct had happened, she wrote. But she rejected a request to disqualify the entire Miami-Dade state attorney’s office.

Smith was being resentenced because he was sentenced to death in two of the murders based on less-than-unanimous juror votes, a practice that was banned in a 2017 Florida law.

Wolfson cited evidence supporting disqualification presented in a multiple day hearing “regarding over 20 years of allegations of misconduct” in the case.

Wolfson said the state’s treatment of discovery in the case “has been questionable throughout the litigation process.” Multiple representations by Von Zamft regarding discovery “can best be described as the continuous movement of the goal line away from the defense team,” she said.

She also cited evidence of witness coordination.

Three cooperating witnesses had testified that they had been taken to the Miami Police Department’s homicide unit to coordinate testimony in the Smith case. One of those witnesses had first made the claim in a January 2023 affidavit, but he changed his story after meeting with two prosecution investigators allegedly sent by Von Zamft.

Further evidence included a recorded August 2022 phone call between Von Zamft and a co-defendant, Latravis Gallashaw, who became a cooperating witness. During the call, they discussed problems with witnesses in the Smith case.

Gallashaw asked whether Von Zamft had considered “rehabilitating” an inmate named Jones. Von Zamft said there had been a problem with Jones’ contradictory statements. Von Zamft said he was trying to arrange a prison courtyard meeting between Gallashaw, Jones and an inmate who was a witness in another case, but his request was turned down.

“But the gun did not stop smoking there,” Wolfson said, carrying on her Perry Mason reference.

In the call, Von Zamft complained that Tricia Geter, a cooperating witness and Smith’s former girlfriend, was unpredictable. She gave full and complete testimony in the prior trial, however, he said.

“If I call her and she refuses, then I will find a way to make her unavailable, and then I can read her whole testimony,” Von Zamft said.

“You would want to do that?” Gallashaw asked.

Von Zamft replied that he didn’t want to do it.

“I’d rather she testified and did a good job. But can I count on it? No,” Von Zamft said.

Wolfson said the phone call “totally and completely corroborates Ms. Geter’s testimony that she got mad at Mr. Von Zamft in 2023 after he told her that if she was dead, he would simply read her prior testimony into the record.”

“It is important to reiterate the context of the interaction between Mr. Von Zamft and Mr. Gallashaw,” Wolfson wrote. “Mr. Gallashaw is a convicted murderer in a case that involves witness elimination. Mr. Von Zamft, a highly trained lawyer, knew who he was talking to. At best, Mr. Von Zamft’s use of the words ‘make her unavailable’ is reckless considering the audience.

“To be clear, this court does not believe that Mr. Von Zamft was sending a cryptic message to Mr. Gallashaw to eliminate Ms. Geter. However, reasonable minds may reach a different conclusion based on the totality of circumstances in this case.”

Geter told the Miami Herald that she fears for her life because of threatening messages that she has received. She learned of the phone call about making her unavailable about two weeks ago.

“Why would you tell him you don’t want me available?” Geter asked in a newspaper interview with the Miami Herald. “It’s unethical that this officer of the state attorney’s office would be conspiring with a known killer.”

Wolfson sent a copy of her opinion to the Florida Bar. Von Zamft told the ABA Journal that because the matter has been referred to the bar, his attorney has instructed him not to comment.

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3. Longtime civil rights advocate Emmet Bondurant…

Bar Associations

Longtime civil rights advocate Emmet Bondurant will receive this year’s ABA Medal

By Amanda Robert

February 27, 2024, 10:11 am CST

Longtime civil rights advocate Emmet Bondurant “has pursued justice with unwavering integrity” throughout his career, according to the ABA, which on Monday announced that he would receive this year’s ABA Medal.

“The ABA Medal is the highest honor bestowed by the American Bar Association, and we are proud to honor Emmett Bondurant for his five decades of commitment to democratic values, equal protection, voting rights and indigent defense,” said ABA President Mary Smith in a news release.

Bondurant, founder of the Atlanta-based litigation boutique law firm Bondurant, Mixson and Elmore, successfully argued Wesberry v. Sanders when he was only 26 years old. In the 1964 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court held for the first time that congressional districts must contain equal populations. This became known as the “one person, one vote” rule.

Among other significant voting rights cases, he urged the Supreme Court in Rucho v. Common Cause in 2019 to end the practice in which state legislatures deliberately draw voting districts to disadvantage residents based on their political views.

The ABA also commended Bondurant for his commitment to fairness and racial justice in the criminal justice system in Georgia.

In 2003, he helped pass the Georgia Indigent Defense Act and was the first chairman of the Georgia Public Defender Standards Council from 2003 to 2007. He is now on the advisory board of Gideon’s Promise, which is working toward effective representation and equal justice for marginalized communities.

In 1989, Bondurant prevailed before the Georgia Supreme Court in Fleming v. Zant. This case established the rule in Georgia that executing defendants who are mentally impaired constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court reached the same conclusion in Atkins v. Virginia 13 years later.

Bondurant also represented attorney Elizabeth Hishon in Hishon v. King & Spalding, a groundbreaking gender equality case. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled in 1984 that firms are subject to Title VII and prohibited from discriminating against women when selecting partners.

“I was surprised and humbled to have been selected to receive the ABA Medal,” said Bondurant, who has been an ABA member for 57 years.

The ABA Medal “recognizes exceptionally distinguished service by a lawyer or lawyers to the cause of American jurisprudence.” Bondurant will accept the award at the ABA Annual Meeting, which convenes in Chicago from July 31 through Aug. 6.

Past recipients include Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Felix Frankfurter, Thurgood Marshall, William J. Brennan Jr., Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer; civil rights leader Fred Gray; ethics leader Lawrence Fox; World Justice Project founder and former ABA President William Neukom; social justice activist Bryan Stevenson; Watergate special prosecutor Leon Jaworski; and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.